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THE PANSY

EDITED BY "PANSY" MRS. G. R. ALDEN.

D. LOTHROP& CO.

BOSTON, MASS., U.S.A.

Copyright, 1886 by D. LOTHROP & CO., and entered at the Boston P. O. as
Second Class Matter.

EPP'S (GRATEFUL--COMFORTING) COCOA.


=CANDY!=

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=Sold by Grocers everywhere.=

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Like all our chocolates, is prepared with the greatest care, and
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    _Volume 13, Number 26._  Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
                    _May 1, 1886._

THE PANSY.


[Illustration: HOWARD'S HENS.]


"DILIGENT IN BUSINESS."

IF there ever was a boy who needed to turn over a new leaf and write
at the top as a motto, "Diligent in business," that boy was Howard
Grinnell.

If his mother asked him to do anything, he always replied, "I will in
a minute." He said this so often that I wonder he was not called "in a
minute" by everybody. It would have been a very appropriate name.

Howard had the charge of the hens, at least that was the way they put
it, but I think that Mrs. Grinnell was the one upon whom the burden
rested. Every morning after breakfast she found it necessary to ask,

"Howard, have you fed the hens?"

"Not yet, but I am going to."

"Well, go right away, or you will forget it."

"No, I will not forget, I am going in a minute; I just want to look at
the weather report."

Half an hour later Howard appears from the direction of the east meadow
with his hands full of meadow lilies which he presents to his mother,
saying:

"The very first! Put them in the antique vase, please. And set it under
the mantle, will you, mamma?"

"Thank you, dear, they are beautiful! I will arrange them at once."
Then as she turned away, "The hens?"

"O, I forgot! I'll go now."

"Seems to me," said Mr. Grinnell one morning, "that you have carried
that on your shoulders about long enough. Howard should attend to his
business without prompting. It did very well at first, but the time has
come when he must be held responsible for the prompt discharge of the
duty, else take away the privilege. Howard!"

"Sir?" responded the boy, turning back on his way to the barn.

"After this you are not to be reminded of your work, and if the hens
are not cared for before breakfast, I will do it myself, and you will
not have any benefit from the eggs, either in money or as food; it will
be some little extra trouble for your mother, but you will be provided
with food prepared without eggs unless you are faithful to your trust."

"Yes, sir." And Howard went on his way. I do not think he made any
resolutions; he thought it would be easy enough to attend to the duty
as required, and gave himself up to the examination of a weed which had
sprung up in the yard and which was a new one to him. The next morning
he remembered the hens, but the second morning though remembering
he thought of something he wished to hunt up in the cyclopædia, and
stopped in the library until the breakfast bell rang.

For breakfast there was ham and eggs, and corn muffins. Howard was a
little surprised when his father passed him a plate with only a potato
on it. He was about to remonstrate, when he caught the significant look
on his mother's face, and remembered the compact. He wisely made the
best of it and decided that he would try a bowl of bread and milk.

After breakfast Mr. Grinnell fed the hens, and at night he brought in
the eggs, saying to his wife:

"I would like some boiled eggs for supper; as Bridget is away, we can
get along very well with bread and butter and eggs. Didn't I see you
making a sponge cake this morning?"

"Yes." Then they both laughed, but Mr. Grinnell sobered immediately and
said:

"It is rather hard on the boy when he is so fond of eggs, but it is
quite time he had a lesson. His dilatory habits will be a hindrance to
his success as long as he lives unless he is cured."

Now, privately, I do not believe that Mr. or Mrs. Grinnell enjoyed
their supper of boiled eggs and sponge cake. I know the mother would
much rather have eaten dry bread and given the boy her supper, but she
and her husband chatted over the meal as if everything were quite as
usual. Howard ate his bread and butter, missing the canned fruit which
Mrs. Grinnell remarked she thought they could do without as they had
the extra indulgence of boiled eggs. Now I do not suppose any of you
boys are surprised to hear that Howard, after asking to be excused
some time before his father and mother were through with their supper,
banged the door slightly as he left the room.

However, the next morning the hens received attention at the proper
time. And so far as that one duty was concerned he did not need
another lesson, but he was not yet made over into the prompt boy which
his father desired him to be. That woodbox! O, boys! Do you shrug your
shoulders and say, "I don't blame him?" The woodbox is a dread to boys,
I well know. Howard Grinnell did not particularly dislike the work of
filling the box, but he was never quite ready to do it. He was always
putting it off until he had finished reading the morning paper, or
been the rounds of the garden and meadows to see if there were any new
flowers out or any new birds' nests, and at length the school bell
would ring and he would go off to school having forgotten that there
was such a thing in the wide world as a woodbox. One morning Mrs.
Grinnell said, "Howard, Bridget will need a box full of wood to-day;
she has a large ironing."

"Yes, ma'am," said Howard dreamily from the depths of an arm-chair
where he had established himself with a new orchid and a botany. Mrs.
Grinnell was busy, and gave the matter no farther attention until two
hours later Bridget announced that the wood was out.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Grinnell, "that boy went off without filling the
box, after all!" After a moment's thought she said: "Well, Bridget,
Howard cannot expect his clothes to be ironed with cold irons. You may
hang all his things upon the bars without ironing, and he will have to
wear them so. Perhaps you and I can get wood enough for the rest."

Bridget thought it a good joke to play upon Master Howard, and her
good nature returned in view of the sport she would have at the boy's
expense.

You may imagine that Howard did not enjoy wearing his rough-dried
garments, but he was forced to do so. And as he was a somewhat
fastidious boy, it was quite a trial to go to school in that plight.

It was by such lessons as this that Mr. and Mrs. Grinnell sought to
cure Howard of his fault; and one day when Mrs. Grinnell was looking
over same mottoes, she discovered one handsomely illuminated which
struck her as being just the one for her son's room. It was this:

"Diligent in business, serving the Lord!"

                                           FAYE HUNTINGTON.


HOW IT BECAME POSSIBLE.

"THAT is impossible!" and Mrs. Frazee turned away to hide the tears
that were ready to fall. The doctor had just said, "I must tell you
plainly, she has no chance for life here; she can never get through the
spring months in this stifled air. If you take her into the country at
once I have not the slightest doubt of complete recovery; she is sure
to rally with fresh air and country living. She ought to go at once."

And to this Mrs. Frazee had made answer, "It is impossible!" and indeed
it did seem impossible. Where was the money to come from for a journey?

Annie Frazee had been ill all winter; first it was the measles, then
later the whooping-cough. How that cough did hang on! Day after day the
child seemed to grow weaker, though they kept hoping for improvement.
They were too poor to have constant medical attendance, but a
kind-hearted physician who had been consulted when the cough had proved
too obstinate to yield to the mother's nursing, had fallen into the
habit of dropping in for a moment whenever he was in the neighborhood.
It was one of those bright mornings of early spring. Doctor Emmons had
been called to prescribe for Mrs. Murphy's baby. Mrs. Murphy lived away
up at the top of the tall tenement house of which the Frazees occupied
two rooms on the second floor. The doctor stopped for a few moments
on his way down, and his quick professional eye noted immediately the
change in Annie since his last call, and he made the plain statement
which so distressed the poor mother.

"If it could be," she said over and over when Doctor Emmons had gone on
his busy way, "but it is impossible!"

Suddenly as she was going sadly about taking up the work she must do,
and repeating the sorrowful sentence, "It is impossible!" she seemed
to hear a voice saying, "The things which are impossible with men, are
possible with God."

The voice seemed far away, and though Mrs. Frazee was startled she soon
realized that it was a memory of words she had read long ago, and as
she reflected she knew that they were the words of Christ himself.

[Illustration: ANNIE'S WINDOW.]

Away back in her girlhood Mrs. Frazee had professed to be a follower
of Jesus. The good seed sown in her heart in the Sunday-school seemed
to promise to bring forth fruit; but presently the pleasures of life,
and afterwards the cares, crowded in upon her Christian life, until it
seemed to have withered away. Dropping Christian duties one by one,
putting away the privileges of a servant of God, she had for a long
time been living away from Christ, struggling under her sorrows without
aid from above. And that morning along with the memory of the words,
"With God all things are possible," came the thought, "But this is
not for me! I cannot claim anything from God; I have so long wandered
from Christ, so long denied my Master that I have no right to come
in his name asking for help!" Then after a little while thoughts of
the prodigal came to her, and then by and by, stepping softly so as
not to disturb Annie who had fallen into a light sleep, and saying in
a whisper so faint that only the ear of the Infinite could hear, "I
will arise and go to my Father," she passed into the other room, and,
closing the door, knelt down alone with God to confess her sin and to
plead for forgiveness. When did Christ ever turn away from a weary,
burdened and repentant soul?

When Mrs. Frazee came back to the room where Annie was still sleeping,
and looked into the pale face, she murmured, "If it be thy will, dear
Father, spare my child." The possibility of bringing about a removal of
her darling into the country seemed as remote as ever. Yet now and then
there came the thought, "With God all things are possible!"

       *       *       *       *       *

In a pleasant home in the upper part of the city a cheerful group sat
at breakfast.

"If I go home with uncle Ben, I have ever so much to do to-day," said
Ethel Miller, a bright young girl of fifteen.

"You girls always have so much to do," replied her brother John, two
years younger. "I could get ready to go into the country for a few
days in five minutes, but I suppose you will have to spend half a day
deciding what to take, and the other half in packing two or three
trunks!" he added with a smile.

"You are quite mistaken; I am not going to take even one trunk. But I
have some calls to make."

"Calls!" said uncle Ben, arching his eyebrows. "I supposed that as you
were a schoolgirl yet, you were exempt from that form of fashionable
nonsense."

"Oh! I do not mean fashionable calls," replied Ethel; "but you see I
am on the lookout committee, and Mr. Myers told me yesterday that the
Frazee girl who has been sick all winter seems to be failing, and I
ought to go there before I go away. And there are one or two more on my
list who live down that way, so I may as well call on them all while I
am about it."

"What will you do this morning, Benjamin?" asked Mr. William Miller,
Ethel's father.

"If Ethel will take me along, I think I will go with her, and on the
way back I will drop in at the store and go to lunch with you. And this
afternoon I propose to give myself over to John."

This arrangement gave general satisfaction, only Mrs. Miller suggested
that she, being left out of the plans, should claim the evening for
herself.

Several things happened to delay Ethel and uncle Ben, so that it was
quite a little after noon when they reached the home of the Frazees.
Ethel in her new spring suit, with her dainty ways and bright face, was
a pleasant sight to the invalid, and uncle Ben seemed to Mrs. Frazee to
bring in a whiff of that country air which she had been longing for.

It all came about naturally enough. Ethel's inquiries brought out
the information that Annie was not gaining and that the doctor had
recommended country air. And Mrs. Frazee said, "We have not had time
to plan yet, but I hope a way will be opened for her to go, though it
seems just now to be impossible."

Uncle Ben listened, meantime taking in the barenness of the room as to
its furnishings. Presently he asked a few questions, not in any sense
obtrusive, but such as a sympathetic stranger might ask if he knew how,
and uncle Ben did know how. Then he said, turning to Ethel: "Suppose we
take your friend here home with us? There's room enough out there, and
your aunt would not let her want for care."

Ethel's eyes beamed. "That would be just the thing! May we take her,
Mrs. Frazee?" Then Ethel explained that uncle Ben lived about forty
miles away in the country, that she was going home with him for a week,
and that Annie would be a very welcome guest if she could go.

"You see," said Mr. Benjamin Miller, "if it agrees with her out there
she can stay on after Ethel comes back to school; Ethel being with her
for the first few days will help her to get used to the place."

Mrs. Frazee was too much overcome to express her joy at this unexpected
turn of affairs. She tried to say it was too much, that they were
strangers to him, and could not expect such kindness; but uncle Ben
said:

"It's all right! This seems to be the next bit of work that the Lord
has set for me to do, and it is not an unpleasant task, I'm thinking.
Someway he gives me pleasant things to do, mostly!"

So it was settled, and a week later Mrs. Frazee's heart was cheered by
a letter from Annie herself. She wrote:

    MY DEAR MAMMA:

    I am getting stronger every day. It is lovely here. The
    house is the prettiest I ever saw, and my room is just
    as cunning as it can be. A pair of birds are building
    a nest under the eaves close to my window. Mrs. Miller
    brought up some plants in pots for my window. Before
    Miss Ethel went away she went down the river to where
    the pussy willows grow and brought me some catkins.
    Mr. Miller is going to take me out for a ride this
    afternoon. I have all the milk I can drink, and I do
    not cough at all nights. I wiped the dishes for Mrs.
    Miller this morning. So you may know I am better.

                                           ANNIE.

Mrs. Frazee dropped the letter in her lap, and clasping her hands said,
"My God, I thank thee!" Presently Doctor Emmons tapped at the door, and
entering, looked about in surprise.

"What have you done with my patient?"

"O doctor! didn't you know? She has gone into the country and I have a
letter here from her. She is getting well!"

"Of course she is! But how did it happen?" And then Mrs. Frazee had to
tell the story to the wondering doctor. As she ended she added, "And I
have found out that 'all things are possible with God.'"

                                              FAYE HUNTINGTON.

      -       -       -       -       -       -       -

    SOME little folks are apt so say,
      When asked their task to touch,
    "I'll put it off, at least, to-day;
      It cannot matter much."

    Time is always on the wing;
      You cannot stop its flight;
    Then do at once your little tasks;
      You'll happier be at night.

    But little duties still put off
      Will end in "Never done;"
    And "By-and-by is time enough"
      Has ruined many a one.--_Well Spring._


SIX O'CLOCK IN THE EVENING.

    GOD IS A SPIRIT: AND THEY THAT WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP
    HIM IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH.

    ONE SOWETH AND ANOTHER REAPETH.

    JESUS SAITH UNTO HIM, GO THY WAY, THY SON LIVETH.

    WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE?

    JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE.

IN came the children, one evening when they were to have a story, and
Rollo laid the verses in Grandma Burton's lap. The room looked very
pretty that evening. There was a bright coal fire burning in the grate,
which lighted everything beautifully, and Grandma herself was the
prettiest object in it. So the children thought, anyway.

"Yes," she said, "I know a story about that last one. It happened a
great many years ago, as the most of my stories do. Are you all ready?"

The hassock and chairs were by this time fixed in their accustomed
places, and the silence kept by all the children showed that they were
ready for the story, without Harold's announcement to that effect. So
Grandma began:

"It was one day in November, just before Thanksgiving, when I was about
twelve years old, that my brother Fred and I received a note from a
lady who lived out in the country a mile or two, which said that she
wanted us to come and spend Thanksgiving with her. We were both very
fond of Mrs. Watson, and were delighted when father said we might go.

"So that afternoon he harnessed Old Gray to the sleigh, and took us
around to Mrs. Watson's. It was quite cold, I remember, and father said
he guessed there would be a big snowstorm in the night. The house we
were going to was a little low one, that was old-fashioned even then,
and with only one story.

"Mrs. Watson came to the gate to meet us, and showed us into her warm
kitchen, while father said good-by, and hurried home. We had some nice
fresh milk and bread for supper, and went to bed early. I was very
tired, and didn't waken till I heard the big clock strike six, so I
hurried up, and dressed very fast, all the time wondering what made the
room so dark. I couldn't see out of doors, because of the curtain at
the little window.

"When I came into the other room, I saw my brother up on a chair at
the window, looking over what seemed to be a white sheet tacked to
it, and Mrs. Watson watching him. 'You can't see anything but snow,'
he said presently, 'for the little hill hides the road.' 'Why, what
is the matter?' I asked, surprising them so that Fred nearly fell off
his chair. And how frightened I was when I found the snow had drifted
against the house, so that we could neither see out of the windows, nor
get out of the door!

"My!" said Sarah. "Why, we never see so much snow as that here,
Grandma."

"I know, dear," said Grandma Burton, "but where I lived when I was a
little girl was much farther North than we are now, you know, and I
remember that in the winters we often used to go out sleighriding, and
ride over the tops of the fences, not being able to see them at all."

"What fun! Now go on, Grandma."

"Well, we tried to make a way through the drift, but didn't succeed. My
brother said he thought he could shovel a path, but Mrs. Watson told
him she had lent her big shovel to Mr. Smith the day before, while his
was getting mended, and had only a little one for the fire. So all
there was to do was to get breakfast, and wait for some one to come and
dig as out of the drift, or rather, dig the drift away from us.

"We did pretty well for breakfast, only we hadn't any bread. 'I was out
of flour,' said Mrs. Watson, 'before I knew it, and Mr. Jones was to
bring me another barrel this morning, but I don't suppose he will come,
now that there is so much snow.' The turkey was there in the pantry, so
were the cranberries; Mrs. Watson let Fred and me help cook them for
dinner, and we tried to make the best of our condition, and think as
little as possible of the great wall of snow outside the house. But it
was hard work; every little while the tears would come into my eyes,
to think of my dear father and mother at home, not knowing how we were
snowed up in the little red farmhouse.

"A little while after breakfast we all sat down to have family worship,
and Mrs. Watson, taking down her big old Bible, read part of the sixth
chapter of John. I remember it now, just as well as I did years ago,
how she read about Jesus' feeding that great multitude, when they had
nothing to eat. And then how he told his disciples afterward what was
the best bread to have, and said, 'I am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst.'

"'Children,' said Mrs. Watson, when she had finished reading, 'Jesus
can give us the bread we eat, and the bread of life, just as well now
as he could then. Let us ask him for the two kinds.' And then we knelt
down, and she prayed very earnestly that God would not only give us the
bread that we needed then to eat, but would also give us the blessed
bread of life. And I am sure Fred and I prayed too.

"The dinner was a pretty good one, with the turkey and all, but we
missed the bread again. It is wonderful how much you do need that,
no matter what else you have. I had often thought, before that
Thanksgiving, that I could get along just as well without bread as with
it, if I had plenty of other things, but I saw, in just that one day,
how necessary it was.

"We had a pretty lonely afternoon. Nearly always, when we went to see
Mrs. Watson, we had a very good time, but with that great wall of snow
outside the house, and the weather growing colder and colder, so that
it couldn't melt, it was impossible to be very happy, no matter how
much we tried. It seemed awful to go to bed feeling so badly, though I
knew that father would be after us in the morning. Every little while,
all the afternoon, I would flatten my nose against the window, and
after looking at the snow a minute, I would shut my eyes tight, and
pray to God that he would have somebody come and help us soon. And I
really thought he would answer.

"When supper time came, and the clock struck six, we were all real
glad, I guess, for we hadn't eaten so very much for dinner, and were
pretty hungry; besides, supper would give us something to do. But there
wasn't much of it--no bread, and no milk--only a little cold turkey for
each of us, for the coal was all gone, and we couldn't cook anything.
The room was growing cold. I put mother's shawl around me, and Fred put
on his overcoat, while Mrs. Watson got her shawl too. We had to light
a candle long before supper time, it got dark so early, when only a
little bit of light could come in at the windows.

"So there we sat, in the cold kitchen. Once or twice Mrs. Watson
suggested that my brother and I should go to bed, but he was sure he
didn't want to--neither did I. So she got out an old game of checkers,
and we played awhile, till we grew sleepy in spite of ourselves, and I
dropped off into dreamland with my head on Mrs. Watson's lap, and Fred
with his on the table. I didn't waken till the clock struck ten, and
then I sat up and looked about me in surprise. I could hardly remember
where I was, when suddenly I heard a dull thud, which made all of us
jump.

"We opened the front door wide. Just as we did so, a great mass of snow
came into our faces, soon a snow-shovel appeared, and next--the face
of my father! O, how glad we were! He stepped into the room, and threw
his arms about Fred and me, covering us with a coating of snow. Two or
three more men came in then, one of them with a basket which had been
sent by my mother, and as Mrs. Watson took off the cover, I spied a
huge piece of bread and butter, and contented myself with that. You
can't think how good it was to have some bread again! It seemed a year
since I had had any!

"That's about all there is to tell, except that in the morning father
drove Fred and me home in the sleigh, just as we had come. The reason
the verse made me think of that Thanksgiving was that I had never
before realized how valuable and necessary bread was, and why Jesus
called himself 'the bread of life.'

"My brother told me, a great many years later, that he believed that
day was the first time he ever really made up his mind to come to the
'Bread of life,' and never hunger again."

"Why didn't they come sooner?" asked Rollo.

"They didn't know Mrs. Watson's house was snowed up so. It was out
in the country, you know, and the snow hadn't drifted so badly in
the town. But they missed us from meeting in the morning, and in the
afternoon a man came into town, and told them he had seen the house
with the wall of snow all around it. So they got their shovels, and
came right out to help us."

"I think it was dreadful!" said Marion.

"But God was taking care of us, dearie," said Grandma, "and he heard
and answered our prayers."

                                                  PARANETE.

[Illustration: OUR BABY.]




    _Volume 13, Number 27._  Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
                     _May 8, 1886._

THE PANSY.


[Illustration: GOING A-MAYING.]


REACHING OUT.

(_A further Account of Nettie Decker and her Friends._)

BY PANSY.


CHAPTER VII.

"YOU see," said Jerry, as Nettie came, protesting as she walked that
she could stay but a few minutes, because there was Norm's collar,
and she had four nice apples out of which she was going to make
some splendid apple dumplings for dinner, "you see we must contrive
something to keep a young fellow like Norm busy, if we are going to
hold him after he is caught. It doesn't do to catch a fish and leave
him on the edge of the bank near enough to flounce himself back into
the water. Norm ought to be set to work to help along the plans, and
kept so busy that he wouldn't have time to get tired of them."

"But how could that be done?" Nettie said in wondering tones, which
nevertheless had a note of admiration in them. Jerry went so deeply
into things, it almost took her breath away to follow him.

"Just so; that's the problem which ought to be thought out. I can think
of things enough; but the room, and the tools to begin with, are the
trouble."

"What have you thought of? What would you do if you could?"

"O my!" said Jerry, with a little laugh; "don't ask me that question,
or your folks will have no apple dumplings to-day. I don't believe
there is any end to the things which I would do if I could. But the
first beginnings of them are like this: suppose we had a few dollars
capital, and a room."

"You might as well suppose we had a palace, and a million dollars,"
said Nettie, with a long-drawn sigh.

"No, because I don't expect either of those things; but I do mean to
have a room and a few dollars in capital for this thing some day; only,
you see, I don't want to wait for them."

"Well, go on; what then?"

"Why, then we would start an eating-house, you and I, on a little
bit of a scale, you know. We would have bread with some kind of
meat between, and coffee, in cold weather, and lemonade in hot,
and a few apples, and now and then some nuts, and a good deal of
gingerbread--soft, like what auntie Smith makes--and some ginger-snaps
like those Mrs. Dix sent us from the country, and, well, you know the
names of things better than I do. Real good things, I mean, but which
don't cost much. Such as you, and Sarah Ann, and a good many bright
girls learn how to make, without using a great deal of money. Those
things are all rather cheap, which I have mentioned, because we have
them at our house quite often, and the Smiths are poor, you know. But
they are made so nice that they are just capital. Well, I would have
them for sale, just as cheap as could possibly be afforded; a great
deal cheaper than beer, or cigars, and I would have the room bright and
cheery; warm in winter, and as cool as I could make it in summer; then
I would have slips of paper scattered about the town, inviting young
folks to come in and get a lunch; then when they came, I would have
picture papers if I could, for them to look at, and games to play, real
nice jolly games, and some kind of music going on now and then. I'd
run opposition to that old grocery around the corner from Crossman's,
with its fiddle and its whiskey. That's the beginning of what I would
do. Just what I told you about, that first night we talked it over.
The fellows, lots of them, have nowhere to go; it keeps growing in my
mind, the need for doing something of the sort. I never pass that mean
grocery without thinking of it."

You should have seen Nettie's eyes! The little touch of discouragement
was gone out of them, and they were full of intense thought.

"I can see," she said at last, "just how splendid it might grow to be.
But what did you mean about Norm? there isn't any work for him in such
a plan. At least, I mean, not until he was interested to help for the
sake of others."

"Yes, there is, plenty of business for him. Don't you see? I would have
this room open evenings, after the work was done, and I would have Norm
head manager. He should wait on customers, and keep accounts. When the
thing got going he would be as busy as a bee; and he is just the sort
of fellow to do that kind of thing well, and like it too," he added.

"O Jerry," said Nettie, and her hands were clasped so closely that the
blood flowed back into her wrists, "was there ever a nicer thought than
that in the world! I know it would succeed; and Norm would like it so
much. Norm likes to do things for others, if he only had the chance."

"I know it; and he likes to do things in a business way, and keep
everything straight. Oh! he would be just the one. If we only had a
room, there is nothing to hinder our beginning in a very small way.
Those chickens are growing as fast as they can, and by Thanksgiving
there will be a couple of them ready to broil; then the little old
grandmothers did so well."

"I know it; who would have supposed that almost four dollars could be
made out of some daisy grandmothers! Miss Sherrill gave me one dollar
and ninety-five cents which she said was just half of what they had
earned. I do think it was so nice in her to give us that chance! She
couldn't have known how much we wanted the money. Jerry, why couldn't
we begin, just with that? It would start us, and then if the things
sold, why, the money from them would keep us started until we found a
way to earn more. Why can't we?"

"Room," said Jerry, with commendable brevity. "Why, we have a room;
there's the front one that we just put in such nice order. Why not? It
is large enough for now, and maybe when our business grew we could get
another one somehow."

Jerry stopped fitting the toe of his boot to a hole which he had made
in the ground, and looked at the eager young woman of business before
him. "Do you mean your mother would let us have the room, and the
chance in the kitchen, to go into such business?"

"Mother would do _anything_," said Nettie emphatically, "anything in
the world which might possibly keep Norm in the house evenings; you
don't know how dreadfully she feels about Norm. She thinks father," and
there Nettie stopped. How could a daughter put it into words that her
mother was afraid her father would lead his son astray?

"I know," said Jerry. "See here, Nettie, what is the matter with your
father? I never saw him look so still, and--well, queer, in some way.
Mr. Smith says he doesn't think he is drinking a drop; but he looks
unlike himself, somehow, and I can't decide how."

"I don't know," said Nettie, in a low voice. "We don't know what to
think of him. He hasn't been so long without drinking, mother says, in
four years. But he doesn't act right; or, I mean, natural. He isn't
cross, as drinking beer makes him, but he isn't pleasant, as he was
for a day or two. He is real sober; hardly speaks at all, nor notices
the things I make; and I try just as hard to please him! He eats
everything, but he does it as though he didn't know he was eating.
Mother thinks he is in some trouble, but she can't tell what. He can't
be afraid of losing his place--because mother says he was threatened
that two or three times when he was drinking so hard, and he didn't
seem to mind it at all; and why should he be discharged now, when he
works hard every day? Last Saturday night he brought home more money
than he has in years. Mother cried when she saw what there was, but
she had debts to pay, so we didn't get much start out of it after all.
Then we spend a good deal in coffee; we have it three times a day, hot
and strong; I can see father seems to need it; and I have heard that
it helped men who were trying not to drink. When I told mother that,
she said he should have it if she had to beg for it on her knees. But
I don't know what is the matter with father now. Sometimes mother is
afraid there is a disease coming on him such as men have who drink;
she says he doesn't sleep very well nights, and he groans some, when
he is asleep. Mother tries hard," said Nettie, in a closing burst of
confidence, "and she _does_ have such a hard time! If we could only
save Norm for her."

"I'll tell you who your mother looks like, or would look like if she
were dressed up, you know. Did you ever see Mrs. Burt?"

"The woman who lives in the cottage where the vines climb all around
the front, and who has birds, and a baby? I saw her yesterday. You
don't think mother looks like her!"

"She would," said Jerry, positively, "if she had on a pink and white
dress and a white fold about her neck. I passed there last night, while
Mrs. Burt was sitting out by that window garden of hers, with her baby
in her arms; Mr. Burt sat on one of the steps, and they were talking
and laughing together. I could not help noticing how much like your
mother she looked when she turned her side face. Oh! she is younger,
of course; she looks almost as though she might be your mother's
daughter. I was thinking what fun it would be if she were, and we could
go and visit her, and get her to help us about all sorts of things.
Mr. Burt knows how to do every kind of work about building a house, or
fixing up a room."

[Illustration: THE BURT COTTAGE.]

"He is a nice man, isn't he?"

"Why, yes, nice enough; he is steady and works hard. Mr. Smith thinks
he is quite a pattern; he has bought that little house where he lives,
and fixed it all up with vines and things; but I should like him better
if he didn't puff tobacco smoke into his wife's face when he talked
with her. He doesn't begin to be so good a workman as your father,
nor to know so much in a hundred ways. I think your father is a very
nice-looking man when he is dressed up. He looks smart, and he is
smart. Mr. Smith says there isn't a man in town who can do the sort of
work that he can at the shop, and that he could get very high wages and
be promoted and all that, if"--

Jerry stopped suddenly, and Nettie finished the sentence with a
sigh. She too had passed the Burt cottage and admired its beauty and
neatness. To think that Mr. Burt owned it, and was a younger man by
fifteen years at least than her father--and was not so good a workman!
then see how well he dressed his wife; and little Bobby Burt looked as
neat and pretty in Sunday-school as the best of them. It was very hard
that there must be such a difference in homes. If she could only live
in a house like the Burt cottage, and have things nice about her as
they did, and have her father and mother sit together and talk, as Mr.
and Mrs. Burt did, she should be perfectly happy, Nettie told herself.
Then she sprang up from the log and declared that she must not waste
another minute of time; but that Jerry's plan was the best one she had
ever heard, and she believed they could begin it.

With this thought still in mind, after the dinner dishes were carefully
cleared away, and her mother, returned from the day's ironing, had
been treated to a piece of the apple dumpling warmed over for her, and
had said it was as nice a bit as she ever tasted, Nettie began on the
subject which had been in her thoughts all day:

"What would you think of us young folks going into business?"

"Going into business!"

"Yes'm. Jerry and Norm and me. Jerry has a plan; he has been telling me
about it this morning. It is nice if we can only carry it out; and I
shouldn't wonder if we could. That is, if you think well of it."

"I begin to think there isn't much that you and Jerry can't do, with
Norm, or with anybody else, if you try; and you both appear to be ready
to try to do all you can for everybody."

Mrs. Decker's tone was so hearty and pleased, that you would not have
known her for the same woman who looked forward dismally but a few
weeks ago to Nettie's home-coming. Her heart had so warmed to the girl
in her efforts for father and brother, that she was almost ready to
agree to anything which she could have to propose. So Nettie, well
pleased with this beginning, unfolded with great clearness and detail,
Jerry's wonderful plan for not only catching Norm, but setting him up
in business.

Mrs. Decker listened, and questioned and cross-questioned, sewing
swiftly the while on Norm's jacket which had been torn, and which
was being skilfully darned in view of the evening to be spent at the
parsonage.

"Well," she said at last, "it looks wild to me, I own; I should as
soon try to fly, as of making anything like that work in this town;
but then, you've made things work, you two, that I'd no notion could
be done, and between you, you seem to kind of bewitch Norm. He's done
things for you that I would no sooner have thought of asking of him
than I would have asked him to fly up to the moon; and this may be
another of them. Anyhow, if you've a mind to try it, I won't be the
one to stop you. I've been that scared for Norm, that I'm ready for
anything. Oh! the _room_, of course you may use it. If you wanted to
have a circus in there, I think I'd agree, wild animals and all; I've
had worse than wild animals in my day. No, your father won't object; he
thinks what you do is about right, I guess. And for the matter of that,
he doesn't object to anything nowadays; I don't know what to make of
him."

The sentence ended with a long-drawn, troubled sigh.

Just what this strange change in her husband meant, Mrs. Decker could
not decide; and each theory which she started in her mind about it,
looked worse than the last.

Norm's collar was ready for him, so was his jacket. He was somewhat
surly; the truth was, he had received what he called a "bid" to
the merry-making which was to take place in the back room of the
grocery, around the corner from Crossman's, and he was a good deal
tried to think he had cut himself off by what he called a "spooney"
promise, from enjoying the evening there. At the same time there was
a certain sense of largeness in saying he could not come because he
had received an invitation elsewhere, which gave him a momentary
pleasure. To be sure the boys coaxed until they had discovered the
place of his engagement, and joked him the rest of the time, until he
was half-inclined to wish he had never heard of the parsonage; but for
all that, a certain something in Norman which marked him as different
from some boys, held him to his word when it was passed; and he had
no thought of breaking from his engagement. It was an evening such as
Norman had reason to remember. For the first time in his life he sat
in a pleasantly furnished home, among ladies and gentlemen, and heard
himself spoken to as one who "belonged."

Three ladies were there from the city, and two gentlemen whom Norman
had never seen before; all friends of the Sherrills come out to spend
a day with them. They were not only unlike any people whom he had ever
seen before, but, if he had known it, unlike a great many ladies and
gentlemen, in that their chief aim in life was to be found in their
Master's service; and a boy about whom they knew nothing, save that he
was poor, and surrounded by temptations, and Satan desired to have him,
was in their eyes so much stray material which they were bound to bring
back to the rightful owner if they could.

To this end they talked to Norman. Not in the form of a lecture, but
with bright, winning words, on topics which he could understand, not
only, but actually on certain topics about which he knew more than
they! For instance, there was a cave about two miles from the town,
of which they had heard, but had never seen; and Norm had explored
every crevice in it many a time. He knew on which side of the river
it was located, whether the entrance was from the east or the south;
just how far one could walk through it, just how far one could creep
in it, after walking had become impossible, and a dozen other things
which it had not occurred to him were of interest to anybody else. In
fact, Norm discovered in the course of the hour that there was such a
thing as conversation. Not that he made use of that word, in thinking
it over; his thoughts, if they could have been seen, would have been
something like this: "These are swell folks, but I can understand what
they say, and they seem to understand what I say, and don't stare as
though I was a wild animal escaped from the woods. I wonder what makes
the difference between them and other folks?"

But when the music began! I have no words to describe to you what
it was to Norm to sit close to an organ and hear its softest notes,
and feel the thrill of its heavy bass tones, and be appealed to
occasionally as to whether he liked this or that the best, and to
have a piece sung because the player thought it would please him; she
selected it that morning, she told him, with this thought in view.

"Decker, you ought to learn to play," said one of the guests who had
watched him through the last piece. "You _look_ music, right out of
your eyes. Miss Sherrill, here is a pupil for you who might do you
credit. Have you ever had any instrument, Decker?"

Then Norm came back to every-day life, and flushed and stammered. "No,
he hadn't, and was not likely to;" and wondered what they would think
if they were to see the corner grocery where he spent most of his
leisure time.

The questioner laughed pleasantly. "Oh, I'm not so sure of that. I
have a friend who plays the violin in a way to bring tears to people's
eyes, and he never touched one until he was thirty years old; hadn't
time until then. He was an apprentice, and had his trade to master,
and himself to get well started in it before he had time for music;
but when he came to leisure, he made music a delight to himself and to
others."

"A great deal can be done with leisure time," said another of the
guests. "Mr. Sherrill, you remember Myers, your college classmate? He
did not learn to read, you know, until he was seventeen."

"What?" said Norm, astonished out of his diffidence; "didn't know how
to read!"

"No," repeated the gentleman, "not until he was seventeen. He had a
hard childhood--was kicked about in the world, with no leisure and no
help, had to work evenings as well as days, but when he was seventeen
he fell into kinder hands, and had a couple of hours each evening all
to himself, and he mastered reading, not only, but all the common
studies, and graduated from college with honor when he was twenty-six."

Now Norm had all his evenings to lounge about in, and had not known
what to do with them; and he could read quite well.


THE TWO LITTLE PIGS.

ONE bright summer morning as I was strolling toward the beach, on the
island of Mackinac, I saw a short distance ahead of me, two little
pigs, one perfectly white and the other perfectly black, both the same
size, trudging along side by side in the same direction as myself,
seemingly engaged in earnest conversation. They seemed so out of place,
and I was so curious to know whither they were bound, that I followed
them unobserved.

They did not walk aimlessly, but as if they had some special object
in view, and some definite destination. I wondered what they would do
when they reached the water. I was not long in being answered. Without
a moment's hesitation, they plunged into the waves, side by side, and
swam out and away toward another island, six miles distant. I stood and
watched them until their two little heads looked like balls bobbing up
and down, side by side all the time.

When I related the incident to the landlord, a little later, he looked
astonished and annoyed.

"Those pigs," he said, "were to have been served up for dinner to-day.
They were brought here this morning in a boat from that island, six
miles away, and we thought we might allow them their freedom for the
short time they had to live, never thinking of their making an attempt
to return home. And did you notice," he continued, "they chose the
point of land nearest the island where they came from, to enter the
water? Singular, the little animals should have been so bright? And,
furthermore, they weren't landed there; that makes it more strange."

I, too, left the island that day, and I have never heard whether those
brave little pigs ever reached their destination or not.--_Harper's
Young People._


DECORATION DAY.

    YES, little daughter, we go again,
      One glad bright hour in May,
    To cover with bloom the quiet graves
      Where sleep the "Blue and Gray."

    I think I have told you many times
      The sacred reason why,
    But mamma often likes to speak
      Of the sad, sad days gone by.

    I have told you how your grandpa
      Fell in the ranks of the Blue,
    When I was a wee maid, Barbara,
      Not nearly as large as you.

    Fell 'neath the dear old banner
    At the battle of "Cedar Creek,"
    In the days when uncle Charley
    Was a baby small and weak.

    I well remember him, darling,
      So true, and noble, and bold,
    Though I was such a small, small girlie,
      Not quite turned eight years old.

    He told me we of the Northland
       Were forced to enter the fight,
    How _we_, not our Southern brother,
      Were battling for God and right,

    How they of the fiery Southland
      Were striving to tear apart
    The States cemented by life-blood,
     From many a loyal heart.

    And I ever was staunchly loyal,
      For when my baby came,
    I called her the name our Quaker bard
      Has given to deathless fame.

    Of her who so bravely held the flag,
      Out in the morning air
    Baring to rebel bullets
      The crown of her grand white hair.

    But grandpa dwells where he knows to-day
      The truth between Gray and Blue
    Better than they of that far-off time
      Who thought they alone were true,

    And mamma has learned that noble men
      Were there on the conquered side,
    As any that ever suffered,
      Suffered and bravely died.

    So, little maiden Barbara,
      On that sunny time in May,
    Let us seek to honor the lonely graves
      Of the men who wore the Gray.

                    EMILY BAKER SMALLE.

[Illustration: LITTLE MAIDEN BARBARA.]




    _Volume 13, Number 28._   Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
                    _May 15, 1886._

THE PANSY.


[Illustration: "WILD MAGGIE" AND I SERVED.]


MONUMENTS.

IT was my first visit to New York. A few days after my arrival
uncle took me to Greenwood, the most beautiful cemetery I ever saw.
We visited the many points of interest. As we stood gazing at the
fireman's monument, uncle told me the story of his heroism; how in one
of the fierce fires this brave man lost his life while rescuing a woman
from the flames. Then we spent a long time looking at the monument to
Miss Conda, the beautiful young heiress who was thrown from a carriage
and killed; and her fortune was built up in this wonderful marble.

The next morning aunt said, "You will go with me to-day to another
Greenwood and see grander monuments than any you saw yesterday."

I wondered how that could be. But we were soon on our way. At length we
turned into narrow, dirty streets, growing worse and worse. I shuddered
at such sights and sounds of human beings, never before dreaming that
in grand New York there could be so much wretchedness. I drew closer
and closer to aunt, fearing one of the human demons that leered at us
would seize me and carry me off.

Such people! such places to live in! Such language! Why, it almost
makes my hair stand on end to think of it. Aunt did not seem to mind
them. May be they knew her, for every one stood aside for us to pass.
"Here it is," she said at length. "Here is the other Greenwood."

"This?" I answered, looking around for gravestones and monuments,
and seeing nothing but dreadful houses and miserable objects. "This
Greenwood!"

She simply answered, "Yes; come right in and you shall see the
monuments."

I could only follow, wondering all the while if aunt was not losing her
mind.

A sweet-faced girl met us with a warm welcome to aunt and an earnest
look at me. As she led the way within, aunt whispered:

"One of the monuments, Clara."

"What? I don't know what you mean."

"Her name is Maggie," she quickly whispered back; "used to be called
'wild Maggie;' was one of the worst girls in this region. Never mind
now, will tell you more hereafter. Take a good look at her, you'll see
her again."

Then I heard singing like the songs of many angels. A door swung open.
We entered. It was a great company of children, black and white, some
with sweet sad faces; others with evil looks, but all singing. Soon
Maggie came in from another door and sat among them and I could hear
her voice ring out in joyful strains, leading the rest.

There was prayer and Bible reading, and such a good talk by a
gentleman. It seemed like heaven, while many of the children, some
partly blind, some lame, some pale and sad-faced, gathered around after
meeting was out and seized aunt Joanna's hand, and seemed so happy.
Another lady was there to whom they all pressed for a smile and a word.

"That lady," said aunt, "is Sir Christopher Wren."

"What _can_ you mean?" I asked. "Sir Christopher Wren was a _man_ who
died in England more than a hundred years ago."

Aunt Joanna only laughed and said, "And came to life again, my child.
This is he, only greater."

"What?" said I, more and more bewildered.

But she went on: "Look around here at the Monuments. You knew Sir
Christopher was the architect of the great Westminster Abbey of
London, and that kings and statesmen and poets are buried there, and
their names and deeds are written there; but if any one inquires for
Sir Christopher Wren's monument, he is told to look at the wonderful
building of which he was the architect."

"I see," said I, "that lady has 'built up' Maggie."

"Exactly," said aunt Joanna, "and more than one hundred other
miserable, sick and wicked children. See that frail girl over there
coming toward her? It would take a book to tell how this lady used to
come daily here and bend over her crib, sometimes holding her in her
arms for hours fearing each moment would be her last. But come and I
will introduce you and you shall see a greater than Christopher Wren."

After we were on our way home, aunt told me the story of this lady; how
one day curiosity led her to go through this worst part of New York.
Her heart was so touched at the wretchedness of the people that she
resolved to do something for them. Her friends tried to dissuade her.
Some said the people would kill her; some said it was no use to try to
help them. But she went right forward, and now after years of labor and
sorrow there is her monument, saved children.

Before my return home in the country, aunt Joanna gave a treat to the
children of the Home all at her own expense.

Maggie, once "Wild Maggie," and I served. How many sandwiches I passed
around, how many cups of milk Maggie filled, how some of the urchins
were dressed, how they laughed, or chattered, or stared, what they all
said to aunt Joanna about the "treat," would fill a book.

                                               CLARA.


MONKEY POCKETS.

I SUPPOSE you did not know that monkeys had any pockets, save those
in the little green coats they sometimes wear. But that is a mistake;
their real pockets are in their cheeks. The other evening, I travelled
in the next compartment to a little becoated monkey and his master.

The little creature's day's work was over, and, perched up on the sill
of the carriage window, he produced his supper from those stow-away
pockets of his, and commenced to munch it with great enjoyment. Several
times the platform had to be cleared of the girls and boys who had come
to see the little friend off on his journey. At length a porter, whose
heart was warm toward little folks, allowed them to slip in and remain.

The officials felt the attraction of that window; and the stoker
addressed the monkey as "mate." Even the station-master as he passed
cast a sly glance toward the monkey, and a cheer was raised when the
train was set in motion, and the monkey glided away from big and little
spectators.

I heard the other day of a pet monkey called Hag, a creature no larger
than a guinea-pig, whose master once found in his cheek pockets a
steel thimble, his own gold ring, a pair of sleeve-links, a farthing,
a button, a shilling, and a bit of candy. Monkeys, I am sorry to say,
are given to stealing, and they use these pockets to hide the articles
which they have stolen.--_Selected._


MY BRAINLESS ACQUAINTANCE.

BY PARANETE.


VII.--IN WHICH THE STORY IS FINISHED.

"AN easy carriage came to the border of the woods," my acquaintance
continued, "and the poor boy who had been shot was put on a couch that
had been fixed in it, and carried home. All the other boys went home
too. They didn't feel like having any more fun. The boy who had so
carelessly fired the last time could hardly be comforted, and nobody
blamed him, but every one pitied him.

"I learned from day to day, from Fred and the other members of the
family, how the sick boy was getting along. He was fast improving, it
seemed.

"I was soon transferred to the cushion from which I had been taken,
where I remained for some time, until fall, indeed. From time to time,
though, I was used for little things by different members of the
family, but nothing special occurred in my presence, and I was seldom
taken from my resting-place, for I was so long, that it was seldom
that any one wanted to use me." (Moral: If you are _long_ about doing
things, no one will want your help.)

"One day trunks were being packed, there was a general air of 'going
away' about the house, and I learned that the lady, Fred's mother, was
going away to be gone for some time. The children were to remain at
home with their father. The last day I, or, more properly speaking,
the pincushion on which I was, was packed in a satchel, and taken to
the depot, and I knew no more of where I was for a good while, except
by the rocking and noise of the train. Soon the satchel I was in was
picked up, I felt the motion of a carriage again, and when light was
let in upon me, we were in a room in a hotel, and my mistress placed
my pincushion on the bureau, where I could see the busy street of a
large city. The pins that were with me were pretty good company, and
we remained in the city (that is, my mistress did) for some weeks,
when one day, to our amazement, she packed up and went off, leaving us
behind!

[Illustration: THE COUNTRY BOARDING-HOUSE.]

"Well, during that winter the room was occupied by various persons,
thus affording me opportunity to study human nature, but I will not
tire you with the results of the study, for I am simply telling you the
story of my life. None of these persons touched me, but finally all
the other pins were gone from the cushion, and I was left alone, and
consequently was rather lonesome. The room was hired by a mother and
her baby, a father and his baby, a young couple taking their wedding
trip, I judged, and divers and sundry other people, who, as I remarked
before, paid no attention to me. I grew more and more lonely, and was
almost despairing of ever getting out of the hotel, when, one day, a
fat old gentleman was led into the room by the colored porter, and
established himself there. He was an author"--

"The one that boards here now?" I interrupted.

"Never mind," responded the pin, "don't interrupt me, please. This
gentleman was an author, as I said before. He had papers and papers
and papers! He had pens and pens and pens! He had stylographic pens,
Mackinnon pens, and Paragon pens, and Todd's pens, and other pens! He
came there to be quiet, he said, but he made more noise than anybody
else in the house, except the solo singer, who roomed at our right, and
the elocutionist (female, of course) who roomed at our left.

"One day the old gentleman announced to the porter that he couldn't
stand it in that horrid place any longer, and he must help him get
away the very next day. So he went. And as he was packing up, he found
one roll of manuscript that wasn't pinned together, and so he drew me
out from my long resting-place, much to my joy, and fastened the roll
together with me.

"I was packed up in his satchel, and we journeyed quite a while.
When it was opened, we were in a pleasant little room in a country
boarding-house"--

"My mother's!" I again interrupted.

"Will you please be so kind as not to interrupt me again?" said the
pin, his sharp voice growing sharper than ever. "I found myself, as I
remarked before, in a pleasant little room in a country boarding-house.
The scenery all around was very beautiful. There were fields, a meadow,
a brook and some woods." (I very much wanted to interrupt again, but I
bit my tongue, and squealed instead.)

"My master took long walks, and would sit down every little while on
stone, stump, or fence, and write. One day as he was going out he asked
the lady of the house to give him some lunch, as he would probably not
be back for a good while"--

"My mother!" I burst forth.

"I think you are very impolite," the pin replied. "However, to pacify
you, I will tell you that you are correct--it was your mother, and she
put him up a nice lunch. He took quite a little walk, meditating the
while, and every few moments he would lift up his arms, and discourse
enthusiastically on the beauty of Nature. These talks were very
uninteresting to me, as I felt quite competent to decide for myself
what I thought of Nature, but I listened silently and patiently. At one
point in the road the gentleman saw a good seat ahead, in the form of
a stump, and so he slung his satchel on his arm, after getting some
papers out, which he commenced to pin together with me. But at this
point, as he was not engaged in looking where he was going, his toe
unfortunately collided with the root of a stump which was firmly fixed
in the ground, and he fell flat! A breeze coming up at the time, his
papers, and so forth, were scattered to the four winds as you might say
(though there was but one at the time), and he probably will never find
the most of them again. His pens flew into a hollow stump near by, I
flew over to the roots of another stump, and he fell on the satchel of
lunch that your mother had prepared for him, squeezing it all out on
the ground. Then he picked himself up and went home.

"As for me, I remained where I fell until you kindly brought me home
with you this afternoon.

[Illustration: "I COULD SEE THE BUSY STREET OF A LARGE CITY."]

"Now, my young friend, I will conclude. I have done my work in this
world, so far, as faithfully as I knew how, and I think I have
fulfilled the purposes for which I was made. I hope I have proved to
you that pins are of some importance, for I came very near causing
the death of one person and saved the life of another. If you do your
work, no matter how small it may be, as well as I have, you will be as
happy as I am, perhaps not joyful, but you will at least be satisfied
with yourself, which is a great deal better than being satisfied with
others. I am through."

The pin stopped.

"Now shall I take you back to the stump?" I asked. But there was no
answer given. I repeated the question, but still I received no reply.

Then I took my acquaintance up carefully, and carried it back to the
stump, laying it in a place sheltered from the wet, as that worthy had
requested.

"Here is your friend the pin," I said. But the stump made no reply. So
I turned sadly and went home, and up to my room, to meditate on the
singular silence of both the pin and the stump.

The supper bell startled me and I arose from my chair and my reverie,
and hastened down stairs.

As I entered the dining-room, one of the boarders said: "Why, where
have you been all the afternoon?"

"Oh, I took a walk down to Racket Brook, and then I stayed up in my
room the rest of the time."

(_I_ was not going to tell about the pin and his story.)

"Are you sure you didn't come down again after you went up just after
dinner?"

"Yes, I did," I indignantly replied.

"I peeped into your room this afternoon, and you were asleep by your
desk."

"You were, I know," assented my little brother. "I saw you way down in
the orchard, and you were asleep with your head on the window sill."

I made no reply, but went up to my room as soon as I had finished my
supper, and spent the evening in writing my composition. And what do
you think it was? Why, just the story of the pin as he told it to me
that afternoon. The children wanted to know if it was true, after I
had come down from the platform, having been greatly applauded by the
audience (the fat author being in it). I replied that, every word of it
was true, and went with them to the shore of the brook, where we found
the identical stump with the young beech-tree growing beside it. Where
was the pin? I do not know. It wasn't there, though, much to my chagrin.

When I got home, the fat author wanted to know if I would let him have
my composition for one chapter of his book. I was perfectly willing,
but when he showed me the chapter afterward it was headed "A Boy's
Dream." And he had it that a boy had gone to sleep on the window-sill,
and had dreamed--my composition!

When I returned it to him he asked me what I thought of it.

"I like it."

"And the title?"

I was silent for a moment--then I said,

"Perhaps it is so."

    NOTE TO ALL THE PANSIES.--In my composition about the
    pin, I mentioned several interesting things about the
    early history of his family, etc., which he probably
    didn't know, or he would have told me. If you would
    like to know about them, just hunt up the word "pin" in
    the encyclopædia, and it will tell you.

                                           PARANETE.


OUR ALPHABET OF GREAT MEN.

P.--PENN, WILLIAM.

THE other day I was looking at a map of Philadelphia, and at once my
thoughts went back to my schooldays and the primary geography in which
occurred the question, "What can you say of Philadelphia?" And the
answer, "It is regularly laid out, the streets crossing each other at
right angles like the lines on a checker-board." And again, "What is
Philadelphia sometimes called?" Answer, "The City of Brotherly Love."

And now I wish I could set before you the calm, sweet, yet strong face
of the man who founded and named this city, who truly desired it to be
a city of love.

William Penn was a native of London. He was born nearly a quarter of a
century after the Pilgrims landed upon Plymouth Rock; he belonged to a
good family, his father being Admiral Sir William Penn of the British
Navy. It appears that the son was of a religious turn of mind, and when
he was a boy of twelve years he believed himself to have been specially
called to a life of holiness. He was very carefully educated, but he
offended his father by joining the Quakers; indeed, it seems that
several times in the course of his life his father became very much
displeased with him, but a reconciliation always followed, and at last
the Admiral left all his estate to the son who had been such a trial
to him. While a student at the University, Penn and his Quaker friends
rebelled against the authority of the college and was expelled. The
occasion of the rebellion was in the matter of wearing surplices and
of uncovering the head in the presence of superiors. You know that the
Quakers always keep their hats on, thinking it wrong to show to man the
honor which they consider belongs only to God. And this reminds me to
tell you that in the _Wide Awake_ for February, I think, Mr. Brooks has
told a pretty story of William Penn and St. Valentine's Day, in which
he mentions this refusal to uncover in the presence of the king even,
as one cause of trouble between the father and son.

I cannot follow with you all the vicissitudes of Penn's life; after
leaving the University he travelled upon the Continent. Afterwards he
studied law in London; he became a soldier. This strikes us as being
somewhat curious when we remember that the sect to which he belonged
are opposed to war, and preach the doctrine of love and peace. However,
he was not long in service, and meeting a noted Quaker preacher he
became firmly fixed in his devotion to the society of Friends, and
was ever after a strong advocate of its doctrines; nothing could turn
him from the path he had chosen. He was several times imprisoned on
account of his religious opinions and suffered persecution and abuse.
Through all he adhered to his views, and stood by his Quaker friends
in the dark days of persecution. He had inherited from his father a
claim against the British Government of several thousand pounds, and
in settlement of this claim he received a large tract of land in the
then New World. With the title to the land he secured the privilege
of founding a colony upon principles in accordance with his religious
views. And in 1682 he came to America and laid the foundations not only
of the City of Brotherly Love, but of the State of Pennsylvania. His
object was to provide a place of refuge for the oppressed of his own
sect, but all denominations were welcomed, and many Swedes as well as
English people came. While other colonies suffered from the attacks of
the Indians, for more than seventy years, so long as the colony was
under the control of the Quakers, no Indian ever raised his hatchet
against a Pennsylvania settler. Under a great elm-tree, long known as
Penn's elm, he met the Indians in council, soon after his arrival in
the territory which had been ceded to him. He said to them:

"My friends, we have met on the broad pathway of good faith. We are all
one flesh and blood. Being brethren, no advantage shall be taken on
either side. Between us there shall be nothing but openness and love."

And they replied, "While the rivers run and the sun shines, we will
live in peace with the children of William Penn."

It has been said that this is the only treaty never sworn to and never
broken.

William Penn lived to see his enterprise achieve a grand success.
Philadelphia had grown to be a city of no small dimensions and no
little importance. The colony had grown to be a strong, self-supporting
State, capable of self-government.

"I will found a free colony for all mankind," said William Penn. Were
these the words of a great man?

Unswerving integrity, undaunted courage, adherence to duty, and
devotion to the service of God--are these the characteristics of a
great man? Then William Penn may well be placed in our Alphabet of
Great Men.

                                           FAYE HUNTINGTON.


MY GIFT.

ARBUTUS SENDS GREETING TO PANSY.

    A GIFT she held from the Father;
      It was pansies fresh with dew;
    Sweet messengers of Heaven,
      They bear a blessing true.

    But her hand too lightly clasped,
      And could not hold them all,
    So to the ground unheeded,
      She let the fairest fall.

    The uplifted lips of the flower
      Did not mutely plead in vain;
    From the dust the blossom I raised,
      And gave to the owner again.

    Sweet Pansy's robe is purple,
      Her crown of the purest gold;
    All hearts who know, enthrone her,
      All love her who behold.

    But I'll away to the forest,
      And seek my treasures there;
    'Tis there Arbutus hideth,
      Her blossoms I may wear.

    This is my gift from the Father,
      Arbutus buds are mine;
    I'll sing their modest beauty,
      In them read Heaven's design.

    And I will bear to the Giver
      The fragrance and the song
    That fills my life with blessing--
      To Him my blooms belong.

    ROCKVILLE, MASS.      _With love of_ ARBUTUS.

[Illustration: SNIPE AND NEST.]




    _Volume 13, Number 29._  Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO
                    _May 22, 1886._

THE PANSY.


[Illustration: SHEPHERD BOY OF THE ALPS.]


ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

BY MARGARET SIDNEY.


VII.

MEANWHILE what of St. George and his faithful comrade? Speeding on in
the railroad train, after the departure of the luckless Thomas, they
had ample time to bemoan the annoyance of the boys left to the cold
comfort of a night on Sachem Hill, and the distress of all the parents
when the condition of things became known.

"I'm awfully glad we knew enough to cut and run," exclaimed Phipps
Benton, hugging himself in his cosey car-corner, "at least that _you_
knew enough," he corrected himself honestly; "that last skate cost
those chaps something. Won't Pa Bangs give it to Wilfred though!"

He couldn't help the shrug of delight as this thought seized him.
Wilfred, to state it mildly, was not a boy to be loved dearly, and
circumstances now seemed likely to make him anything but an object of
envy.

"For shame!" cried St. George hotly, "we've just been there, and he's
treated us well."

Phipps flushed all over his brown little face, and looked out of the
window into the gathering night. St. George jumped out of his seat,
and walked rapidly and unsteadily down the aisle to shake off some of
his excitement. That he was going home to his mother all right, warm
and safe to a capital supper such as only she knew how to get up for a
hungry boy, tired and cold after a long winter-day frolic, made it all
the worse that other boys who had so little while ago been the larger
part of his laughing, noisy troop, should be at this very minute,
shivering, half-starved and cross, at their wits' end how to pass the
night. He could almost see Bridget setting on the supper things, smell
the delicious coffee permeating the house, and hear his mother say,
"Come, it is almost time for my boy to be here, you better begin to mix
your cake-batter," and his mouth almost watered as he thought of the
toothsome, smoking hot cakes that would before long be piled upon his
plate.

But suddenly he stopped. No cakes for him that night--perhaps not
even coffee. Who would tell those parents of the fifteen or so boys
stranded on Sachem Hill why they were not to come bounding into their
several homes on the arrival of the six o'clock train in the B. and A.
Depot? George Edward and Phipps must do all those errands before they
could hope to enjoy any supper that night.

_Whew!_ He drew himself up with a long breath, turned and rushed back
to his seat.

"See here," he cried, throwing himself down, "you can take all the
places nearest to your house--and I'll do the same."

Phipps turned and regarded him with a stare.

"To tell the fathers and mothers," explained St. George with a nod, "no
other way, you see, why the chaps don't get home."

"Good gracious!" cried Phipps explosively, "I never thought of that. We
can't! We're as hungry as beavers."

"We must." St. George laughed gayly, now that the struggle was over,
and indulged in a smart pinch on his companion's shoulder. "Wake up,
old fellow."

"You let me be," cried Phipps crossly, shaking him off, "and you get
out with your 'musts.' I don't know any, I can tell you, and as for
going around to tell a lot of people what's none of my business, you
won't see me doing it. I'm going home myself."

"Who will do it then?" demanded St. George just as sharply.

"Don't know," said Phipps doggedly, "only I know I won't, that's all."
He returned the look his companion gave him with another no pleasanter,
and every whit as determined.

"And you mean to let those fathers and mothers go all night without
knowing where in creation the chaps are?" cried the other boy in the
seat, every feature ablaze with indignation. "Say?"

"They should have come along; it's their own fault they got left."

"But the fathers and mothers aren't to blame," insisted St. George
vehemently. "Yours would go most crazy if you didn't turn up at the
right time."

Phipps, however, was not to allow his feelings to be worked upon
in this way. He now found himself very cold, decidedly hungry, and
violently cross, and, giving St. George a push, he declared, "I tell
you I won't do a single thing, nor take a single step. I can't hardly
move, and I shall go straight home."

"Of course," said St. George, brightening up, and relaxing a bit, "so
shall I, to tell my folks."

"I shall _stay_ there," said Phipps obstinately. With that he turned
again to the window.

"Do!" burst out St. George in high scorn, "and save your stingy, mean,
little pinched-up carcass!"

"Boys," said an old gentleman back of them, leaning forward to bring
his stern face over into the excitement, "I should think if you must
fight, you could find some other place a little more appropriate than a
crowded rail-car."

St. George brought his flushed face over against that of the old
gentleman, and sprang to his feet, reaching for the skates dangling
from the rack overhead, while he shivered all over with anger and
mortification. Phipps did not turn his head.

The old gentleman seeing that his shaft had struck home, wounding at
least one individual, put himself back in his own seat, well pleased,
and St. George summarily retreated to the rear of the car, full of
reflections the farthest removed from agreeable ones.

Here he was in a quarrel, and just a moment before he had been giving
advice how to spare the feelings of others, and he couldn't control his
own, but must anger Phipps with whom he had never had the least falling
out. _Faugh!_ He was so disgusted with himself, he would have thanked
any one who would take him one side, and give him that castigation
he felt he so richly deserved. And there were the eyes of all the
passengers in the car directed to him, as if he were a person whose
movements were singular, to say the least, and would bear watching.
Half of them had heard the old gentleman's sharp, ringing rebuke even
if they had not been listeners to the quarrel itself, and the other
half were now, he felt, staring at him and whispering over him as he
stood pretending to look out of the door, while their eyes seemed
burning holes into his jacket.

It was interminable, that hour before they could reach the B. and A.
Depot, and the only relief he experienced was in pulling out his watch
every five moments to see what time it was.

At last, in the train swept to the depot. St. George looked back
quickly, intending to rush back, bestow a thwack on Phipps' back, say
he was sorry, and make up. But the throng was great and a woman with a
baby asked him to help her off the car, so by the time he got free most
of the passengers had filed out and were hurrying along the platform.
St. George caught a flying glimpse of the boy he sought, some little
distance ahead, and he bounded after him.

"Phipps," he cried, darting in and out between the people, and dodging
an expressman with a barrow, "wait, old chap."

St. George was positive that his call was heard, but the boy in front
now gathered up his skates to a tighter clasp and broke into a run.

St. George chased him so long as he saw the least chance of gaining on
him, then suddenly pulled up.

"All right," he gasped, "if you want it that way, you may have it. I
don't care."


A WAIF FROM THE SKIES.

IN throwing out ballast or any small article from a balloon, a certain
degree of caution is requisite, as a bottle or any similar object falls
with such velocity that were it to strike the roof of a cottage, it
would go right through it. We are told that Gray-Lussac, in an ascent
in 1804, threw out a common deal chair from a height of twenty-three
thousand feet. It fell beside a country girl, who was tending some
sheep in a field, and, as the balloon was invisible, she concluded, and
so did wiser heads than hers, that the chair must have fallen straight
down from heaven.

No one was skeptical enough to deny it, for there was the chair, or
rather its remains. The most the incredulous could venture to do was to
criticise the coarse workmanship of the miraculous seat, and they were
busy carping and fault-finding with the celestial upholstery, when an
account of M. Gray-Lussac's voyage was published, and extinguished at
once the discussion and the miracle.--_Chambers' Journal._


"THE HUMPY THING."

[Illustration]

"I never would have made a camel, that's certain," remarked a wise (?)
lad, after taking a slight look at the ungainly beast.

"Probably not," answered his wiser father. "You would have put the same
material into pop-guns or ponies."

"But see what an ugly thing he is; not a handsome feature about him,"
still urged the boy.

"Handsome is that handsome does," came back to him.

"Look at those abominable humps on his back. Why must he be disfigured
in that way?"

"Does a trunk disfigure a traveller?" quietly asked the father.

"But what has that ill-looking hump to do with a trunk, I'd like to
know?" continued his questioner.

[Illustration: GENERAL GORDON'S CAMEL.]

"There are many more things you ought to 'like to know.' That
ill-looking hump is his trunk, which his master sees is well packed
with--fat--before he starts on the long journey over the deserts where
he can't be sure of any grass or shrubs for days and days. But there
is that trunk full on his back from which the camel picnics on the
weary way."

"Oh! you don't say he carries water there too!"

"No; but near by, in another trunk or bottle. He has an extra supply
in his stomach. Those 'clumsy' feet are _beautifully_ formed for
travelling the desert. Scientific folks might have studied for ages
without discovering and patenting such a marvel of a desert foot.

"You see no beauty in his eyelashes and queer nose, but you would,
after a day in the burning sun or flying sand of the desert. Why, my
boy, there's no beast like him for use in his own land.

"Just see him, knelt there for his load of one thousand or fifteen
hundred pounds, and objecting as plainly as a camel can, when a little
too much is put upon him. Then rising up and moving on his way in such
dignified patience, on and on, hour after hour, seventy-five or one
hundred miles a day. Know of a horse that could do that, my boy?

"He is justly called the 'Ship of the Desert.'"

"'Ugly beast,' indeed!" repeated his father. "Think you Gordon called
him so?"

"Gordon? Who did you say?"

"General Gordon. That brave, grand man who went to Khartoom to save
the garrison and people there from falling into the hands of the false
prophet?

"It almost seems as if the noble camel that carried him hundreds of
miles on the way, knew what General Gordon was going for; he just
hurried right on without a word of complaint, till he could not move a
step further; then another gladly took his place and pushed on day and
night till Charles James Gordon passed through the gates and the city
shouted for joy.

"Now can't you see some beauty in this beast?"

                                                   C. M. L.


SOME REMARKABLE WOMEN.

M.--MITFORD, MARY RUSSEL.

"OUR village!" Do you suppose you could write a book about your
village? Could you find enough matters of interest to make one book?
And yet Miss Mitford wrote five with that title. She wrote about the
houses and the people, the shops, the children, about life in an
English country village, and delightful reading her sketches are. She
wrote as no one had ever before written, and perhaps I might say that
no one since has ever written such charming bits of description of
rural life.

She wrote other books, _Atherton, and Other Tales_, _Country Stories_,
and then she wrote such delightful letters to her friends. You will
find some of these in her _Life and Correspondence_. She was the
daughter of wealthy parents, who later in life became poor. So that
from a life of luxury our gifted author was reduced to poverty.

The latter part of her life must have contrasted painfully with the
days of her childhood, yet she kept through all her trials her sweet
serenity of mind, her habit of making the best of everything. She is
described as a short, stout woman, with a face shining with quiet
happiness and unselfishness. The appreciation with which her sketches
were received gave her much pleasure, and the fact that her writings
were re-printed in America afforded her the greatest gratification,
while it was a surprise to her.

She was a delightful person to meet socially, having charming ways and
a soft, sweet voice. She died in a wee bit of a house, in 1855, at the
age of sixty-eight.

Do you ask why I have chosen to place Miss Mitford in our list of
Remarkable Women? To begin with, she was the first to discover and
set before us in prose writing the beauty in every-day things. She
had written poems and tried her hand at writing tragedy, but with
indifferent success, and at length when poverty stared her in the face
she took up the then new line of writing and tried with grand success
to show to the world the beauty there is in common things. Then all
through her long life with its sad changes she kept that wonderful
serenity of mind, and that happy faculty of living above the vexations
of life. Many a woman when forced by growing poverty to move from place
to place, each time going to a poorer home, would have grown faint and
weary of life, and given up in despair.

[Illustration: MISS MITFORD.]

If we cultivate the habit of making the best of everything, we shall be
the better prepared to meet the vicissitudes of life.

                                               FAYE HUNTINGTON.


[Illustration: ROUND THE FAMILY LAMP]

I SHOULD suggest, dear Pansies, for this lovely month of May, a little
evening festival. Winter is over with its long, delightfully cosey
evenings. Spring is nearly done, with its shorter evenings, and now
we are fairly launched into the flower months--when all life seems an
holiday, and every moment that is possible is to be passed out of doors.

To get ready for my little proposed festival, everybody must go
a-Maying. With baskets, and fern cases, let the children, papa and
mamma, nursey, aunt Grace, uncle Fred, and indeed every one who will
drop books and work, and go off to the woods for the wild treasures
that are playing hide-and-seek there. We do not want on this lovely May
festival, any flowers but wild ones that have grown silently all winter
under the snow, waiting for us. Their reign is short indeed. We will
give them one evening all to themselves before we turn to June with her
wealth of roses, and all other sweet and glowing blossoms.

Let us gather them all--the hepaticas, the anemones, darling little
forget-me-nots, violets, Solomon's seal, and--but the name is
legion--and the varieties multiply as we dig and prowl in the damp
moss, and explore behind rocks and in crannies. Put them all in the
baskets and cases, surrounded by their own moss to keep them green, not
forgetting to bring as many roots as possible, cover all with lovely
vines, and come home, flowers in the baskets, and flowers in your
cheeks.

Amy and Ruth have been very busy. No one exactly knew why they got up
so early in the morning. No one but the cook, and she promised not to
tell. But in the cake-box is a toothsome collection of sugar wafers,
ready to be put on the flower-crowned table, and the two little girls
have every little while that pleasant "woodsy morning," as Ruth called
it, flown at each other in the secret places, when resting from their
flower-digging, and something like this might have been heard, if
there had been ears to hear. But there were none, only those of the
squirrels, and they looked wise, and determined not to tell. "Oh, I
_hope_ they will be good."

"Our new receipt. Just think, if they shouldn't like them!"

Bob has a secret too. Why can't boys as well as girls have one, pray
tell. That is, no one but papa knows it, but then papa has a fashion
without ever asking, of being informed of his boy's movements.

Bob's twenty-five cents hoarded for two weeks, went into the grocer's
till only yesterday, and Bob has twelve bright yellow lemons instead,
waiting as patiently as lemons will, to be sacrificed to a thirsty
group who stand around the same flower-crowned table. Bob's papa is to
give the sugar, and moreover he has promised to tie on another apron
and help the boy make the loveliest lemonade on that very same night.
So Bob and his papa must of necessity go off together on this "woodsy
morning" to hunt for flowers, for there is danger if they staid with
the large group that they would let the whole thing out. Oh, what fun,
to have papa to one's self and a secret!

Now then, after your invitations to two or three neighbors, and a
little friend or two who hasn't many pleasures of her own, are given
out for this evening, and your wood-treasures are ready, and you have
had a good lunch and are all bathed and rested, you have nothing to
do but to arrange your table with banks of moss, flowers and vines,
get uncle Fred who is to give the little talk on "Plants and their
Habits," to settle his microscope and specimens just where he wants
them in the evening, Mary puts out the music on the piano-rack that
she has promised to play, the two secrets are out, because there are
the trays laden with sugar wafers, and two bright-faced, white-capped
young girls, one with blue ribbons and the other with pink, to pass
them around, and there's the lemonade table in the corner, with a big
pail covered with green moss, a little well sweep to which is fastened
the Baby's tiny pail for a bucket, and Bob stands back of it all with
a beaming face ready to serve you to glassesfull from the "old oaken
bucket."

Oh, it is rare fun, this dainty May festival--the best part after all
being the "Plant talk," and the wonders to which the company, young
and old, are brought to see through the microscope. Each small spear
of green has its delicate meaning--each blossom its tender message.
Nothing has been lost there so long under the snow, and the good Giver
tells anew to these awakened minds, his story of creative love. Dear
children, I hope you will have in each family a "May festival," and my
most loving wish is that it may be a happy, bright, and joyous one.

                                              MARGARET SIDNEY.


JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

    YOU want a story, another story,
      One you have never heard before?
    Stories don't come when you call them, always;
      I do not know any more.
    "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Goldilocks,"
    "Bright Prince Charming," "Reynard the Fox,"
    And now you ask for a "spandy-new" one,
    About your Jack-In-The-Box!

    Poor little Jack-In-The-Box, who never
      Can open his door himself;
    Whose house is so small that it almost pinches,
      With neither cupboard nor shelf.
    Dark, beside, with a varnishy smell,
    Enough to keep him from feeling well,
    And a crick in his back that must surely hurt him,
    If he could only tell!

    Now, let's pretend; when he first was finished,
      This rosy-cheeked little Jack,
    He stood up straight, with his hands beside him,
      And never a crick in his back.
    Oh, what a beautiful world of toys!
    Little doll-girls and little doll-boys;
    Drums and trumpets, and everything lovely
    For making a splendid noise!

    Ah, but wait--he is not quite finished;
      Poor little rosy Jack!
    A knife, some glue, some muslin, some paper--
      _Now_ there's a crick in his back!
    Oh, but the hot glue made him smart;
    How near the sharp knife went to his heart;
    And for five dreadful, dreadful minutes,
    His head and feet were apart!

    Now for the box--it is very pretty,
      Painted a charming red.
    In he goes, his feet are fastened;
      Down comes the lid on his head!
    Oh, he knew he was going to smother!
    He'd have called mamma if he'd owned a mother,
    But he'd nobody nearer than distant cousins,
    Neither sister nor brother.

    Frantic his struggles for fifteen minutes,
      But it seemed, the more he tried,
    The tighter his house grew; then his courage
      Failed; and he cried and cried.
    Then he heard laughter, soft and low;
    His door flew up, and he heard an "Oh!"
    And a dear little face was bent above him--
    Your little face, you know.

    Over and over the darkness caught him,
      The lid came down on him tight;
    But he soon found out that after the darkness
      Always would come the light.
    He was a hero! Up he went
    Whenever the lid rose; not content
    With merely rising, he came up smiling,
    Though all of his strength was spent.

    That was the story. Grave and silent
      Sat my small Goldilocks,
    Looking down with a tender pity,
      At brave Jack-In-The-Box.
    "Thank you, auntie," was all she said.
    But I found that night, when she'd gone to bed,
    Jack's box in the grate, and Jack on her pillow,
    Close to the golden head.

    M. VANDERGRIFT, _in Youth's Companion_.

[Illustration: CYPRESS GROVES OF CHAPULTEPEC (MEXICO) TIME OF
MAXIMILIAN.]




    _Volume 13, Number 30._  Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO.
                    _May 29, 1886._

THE PANSY.


[Illustration: "I CAN'T GIVE LULU JANE TO GRANDMA," SAID PATTY.]


PATTY PLUMMER'S TRIAL.

PATTY PLUMMER awoke one lovely August morning with a delightful feeling
that something nice was going to happen that day. The sun was shining
in on the rough board walls of her little chamber, and she could see
the bits of broken china and glass glitter in her playhouse--a corner
of the room outside. Then she thought of her dream! Patty laughed aloud
as she dressed herself, at the thought of her old broken dolly Lulu
Jane chasing her round the house, and squeezing through a tiny crack
when she tried to shut her in the sitting-room!

"Aha! I just know why I dreamed that! I know what makes me so happy!"
and she danced round in her stocking feet, singing her gayest song,
quite forgetful of the old saying,

    Sing before eating
    And you'll cry before sleeping!

"Oh! I do hope she'll bring it to-day," Patty cried as she put on her
slippers and ran out to her play-house, where in a parlor gorgeous with
yellow paper carpet and green pasteboard chairs, stood an old accordion
as a doll's piano, with a gayly-dressed rag lady sitting before it on
a velvet-covered spool, and a fine gentleman by her side in blue paper
trousers and black silk jacket.

Now the "she" of Patty's remarks was her clever cousin Charlotte who
had taken home the "it"--no other than broken-headed, torn-to-pieces
old Lulu Jane herself--to make therefrom, as she declared to Patty the
day before, "the finest rag doll she ever saw!"

"I do b'leeve she'll bring it home this very afternoon," happy Patty
kept saying to herself, as she flew out of doors after breakfast and
worship was over. Everything seemed lovelier than ever this one fair
morning. The little rock-basin filled by water trickling down from
a higher one, which Charlotte had named "the fountain," seemed the
most wonderful thing that ever was; the hollyhocks and lady-delights
fairly smiled as she bent over the flower mound to admire them--all was
cheerful and gay.

How Patty loved to go over by herself the events of a pleasant play-day
with Charlotte! There was the little stone oven place with a mock fire
of sticks, where they had played at boiling a pudding made of mud and
tied in a rag, while the pot was a hollow ribbon block from old Miss
Simpkins' store! there hung the swing her father had made between two
ash-trees for her and her cousin. She climbed on the notched board and
swayed to and fro, every now and then looking up the pasture hill to
see if Charlotte was coming down the path from uncle Nathan's.

By and by she gave a joyful shout. An old-fashioned, two-seated
carriage was coming up the long grassy lane from the big gate opening
into the street. Mother Plummer ran to the door with flowery hands to
see Patty's Grandmother Pratt getting out of the carriage. Such goodies
as grandma always brought from Mill Village when she came to see the
Plummers! This time the driver, uncle Dave, lifted out a huge basket
of big fresh blackberries and a large newly caught salmon. Patty was
not forgotten; grandma never came without something for her little
namesake. The last time she brought Patty a pretty plaid gingham; this
time the gift was a gay Indian basket full of tiny pats of yellow
butter, covered with cool, broad rhubarb leaves.

"O, this is the goodest day that ever I did see!" warbled Patty to
the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, as she followed the dear
plump old lady into the house. The summer day was as perfect as a day
could be. Inside the house everything was sunshiny and cheerful too;
and Patty opened her glad heart to take in the pleasure of all things
to the uttermost. Grandmother sat in the arm-chair swaying the huge
palm-leaf fan as she loosened the ribbon cap strings at her fat white
throat, and Patty sat on a cricket beside her in perfect content. They
were going to have such a lovely dinner! Tempting pink salmon, mealy
new potatoes, blackberries with cream and sugar, and a dainty pie which
Patty's eyes spied through the half-open pantry door. A dainty turnover
beside it too, on purpose for Patty! Never thought of clouds or showers
came into her heart as she sat there softly stroking grandma's gown of
silver gray.

"Tinkle, inkle," came the sound of old Daisy's bell from the pasture;
and the sound started a new train of glad thoughts. If Charlotte would
only come with Lulu Jane, what fun she would have showing the doll to
grandma! Grandma always took an interest in her doll babies--even in
Augustus with his blue paper trousers!

They were all seated around the dining-table, Patty beside grandma,
with the turnover in her hand to keep it from uncle Dave who pretended
he was going to eat it, when the back door opened. Patty's heart went
pit-a-pat, and she ran out with mother's leave, turnover and all, to
meet cousin Charlotte in the dim little entry.

"Here it is," said Charlotte. "I hope you'll be pleased with it; and
I must go right back, 'cause I've got to do a big stent o' patchwork
'n help aunt Betsy get supper for comp'ny." Patty took the bundle to
the out-door light, and when she opened it, danced and screamed with
delight.

"You dear, darling old thing!" she cried, hugging Charlotte so hard
she fairly hurt her. "How did you fix her up so nice?" she sat on the
doorstep admiring Lulu Jane between bites of turnover while Charlotte
flew home like a bird.

The doll had a new smooth white linen face, the head nicely joined at
the top instead of being sewn with big black stitches as Patty sewed
hers. The face had beet-juice cheeks and black bead eyes, the feet were
neatly shod with velvet, and the old gown had been replaced by a pink
ruffled one of calico, edged at the neck with a frill of lace. But the
crowning glory was a little pink bonnet trimmed with a downy chicken's
feather and a tiny spray of snakeberry vine from which hung wee scarlet
berries! Patty hugged her treasure closely, and ran to the swing to
enjoy it by herself. Uncle Dave was coming, and he might run off with
it just to tease her. By and by she ran in to show it to grandma.

"Deary, deary!" said grandma, as she took the dolly from Patty and
examined it through her spectacles. "Nice piece o' work, quite a neat
little gownd, 'n a bunnit too! Charlotte must be quite tasty."

Grandma held it in her fat hand a minute and then after fumbling in her
big pocket she brought out a shining new quarter-dollar.

"Patty," said she, looking down into the wondering eyes of her little
granddaughter, "I'd like to buy this pretty doll to take home to your
little cousin Bessie Alice. She's coming to spend to-morrow with me
and she'll think so much of a doll that came 'way from Mapleton." The
cloud had come down over the sun; the gladness of the perfect day was
completely darkened by the trial which suddenly loomed up before the
child.

"Why, gra'ma!" cried she, the tears flowing fast, "you don't want me to
let you have my darling sweety Lulu Jane, when she just got all fixed
up new! I never could let her go! Please give her to me, grandma."
Grandma placed the precious doll in Patty's arms and said quietly:

"I won't take your doll away if you aren't willing; but I was thinkin'
how pleased Bessie Alice would be; you know she's no ma now 'n no
Charlotte to make dolls for her like you have. Then you'd have the
quarter to help buy you a winter hat, and Charlotte would make you
another dolly, I'm sure. But if you aren't willing I'll say no more
about it," and she put the bright quarter away in her big pocket again.

"Can I have a little while to think it over?" asked Patty timidly. Her
good mother had taught her to think matters over before she decided,
and the sight of the money had brought something to her mind. The
Sunday-school superintendent had told the children only last Sunday
about two good women who had left their homes to teach the poor
Labrador children about Jesus. They needed books and papers. Miss
Bridgman, Patty's teacher, had asked her class if they could not bring
some money next Sunday even if they had to deny themselves of something
to get it. Patty thought it all over upstairs. She looked at the
beautiful bonnet, the velvet shoes and the pink ruffles, and gave the
doll a hard hug as she cried amid falling tears:

"I can't give her to gra'ma, I can't sell her! I wish gra'ma 'd never
come! I wish Bessie Alice 'd never been born! That hateful thing! She's
got red hair, 'n she did just pinch me awful, once! Oh, dear, _dear_,
DEAR! this is the nastiest day I ever did see!" and she threw herself
on the trundle bed in a spasm of grief.

Then better thoughts came.

"Why, ain't I a goose! What am I cryin' for? I needn't sell her 'f I
don't wan't to! Poor Bessie Alice, I'm awful sorry she's got no mother
to tuck her in bed 'n' kiss her! I s'pose Jesus 'd be pleased if I let
her have it. I'd rather have Lulu Jane than twenty quarters; but I'd
have all that money to take to Miss Bridgman Sunday, 'n that would
please Jesus too. And I do want to please Him, I'm sure! Of course
Charlotte would make me another! She's such a '_genius_ girl, mother
says. I'll go right away 'n give dolly to gra'ma. I'm goin' to sell it
to you," handing the fine lady to Grandmother Pratt. "I want the money
for the missionaries, 'n I do pity Bessie Alice. Put her away quick, so
I won't want her again," said Patty, dancing away with the quarter in
her hand.

[Illustration: JACK.]

"You are a darlin' child, cert'in," said grandma, looking fondly after
her.

"Well, this has been the queerest day!" said little Patty as she sat on
the doorstep that night watching the old carriage roll away toward Mill
Village. "I'd like to have Lulu Jane to play with, 'n' I don't know
what Charlotte'll say; but I b'leeve I feel happier now than I did this
mornin', 'n I was happy then 's I could be!"

                                               GUSSIE M. WATERMAN.


HARRY'S SACRIFICE.

"SELL Jack! No, indeed, not for any money!"

Harry Danvers responded to Colonel Bates' offer almost indignantly.

"It is a good offer for the dog," continued the colonel, "more than he
is really worth, but Frank has taken a fancy to him, and to gratify him
I am willing to give a good price."

"No, sir; I shall want money worse than I ever have yet when I part
with Jack. Thank you for the offer, but I cannot sell my dog."

"That is a foolish boy," said the colonel, turning to a friend as Harry
went off down the street whistling to his dog; "I made him a good
offer. You know my boy Frank is an invalid, and it was to gratify a
whim of his that I offered the boy twice the worth of the dog."

"I heard your offer, and I confess I thought it very liberal," replied
the friend; "has the boy rich parents, that he can afford to reject
such offers?"

"No; Danvers is only a day laborer, and I do not suppose the boy ever
had five dollars pocket money in his life."

"Humph!" was the expressive rejoinder of the friend; then the subject
was dropped.

There was a missionary convention in progress in the town where Harry
Danvers lived. Harry was not specially interested in missions, though
he was a Sunday-school scholar and a member of a Mission Band; but
someway he did not get interested in the Band. And I suspect that boys
generally fail to become interested in the Mission Bands. Can you tell
why it is that our missionary societies are so largely made up of girls?

Harry had no thought of going to any of the meetings in progress, but
at tea time his sister Alice said:

"Harry, they say that the teacher from the school where our Band
supports a pupil is going to speak to-night at the First Church; let's
go down."

"I don't want to hear any missionary women speak," said Harry.

"But, my son, if your sister wants to go, you will not refuse to go
with her?" said Mr. Danvers.

"I suppose I can go," replied Harry, not ungraciously, but somewhat
indifferently.

"I do want to go; and, Harry, you know you said you were to write an
essay on the Indian question for next Wednesday; maybe you'll get some
ideas; you know Miss R---- is from the Indian Territory."

"All right! Count me in. I'll be ready in a jiffy."

Harry Danvers was never the same boy after that evening. You might not
have noticed the difference, but it was there. He could never again
be indifferent towards Missions. He gained, as Alice had suggested,
some ideas, but not altogether in the line of his school essay. He
for the first time in his life realized that he, Harry Danvers, had
a part in the great work given to the church of Christ; that the
responsibility of sending the Gospel to the heathen nations rested upon
him in proportion to his ability, and the question, What can _I_ give?
was pressed home upon his heart. The duty and privilege of sacrifice
were set before him, and he asked himself, What can I sacrifice? The
questions were unanswered when he went to bed that night. Harry was a
Christian boy, and he carried his questioning to his Heavenly Father,
and waited for the answer. The next morning as he went down stairs,
with Jack's customary greeting there came to him the answer he had
sought. Here was an opportunity to prove his sincerity! Was he equal to
the sacrifice?

"What is the matter, Harry?" asked his mother; "are you sick?"

"The missionary meeting was too much for him, I guess," said Alice.

"Didn't you like the speaker?" asked Mr. Danvers.

"Yes, sir; _I_ liked it all very much. Mother, you ought to go this
morning; they say there is a perfectly wonderful speaker to be on the
platform--a woman from Syria; are _you_ going, Harry?"

"I don't know," replied Harry indifferently.

"Dear me," said Alice; "boys are so queer. Now I thought it was just
splendid last evening, but Harry won't even say he liked it. I was all
stirred up and ready to give all my jewelry--only I haven't any to
give," and Alice chattered on until breakfast was over, and the family
went their several ways. All the time Harry was thinking, and, as you
will see, thinking to some purpose. He had an errand down town for his
mother, and as he went out of the gate he said with energy, "I'll do
it!"

Now Mrs. Danvers was a timid woman, and very much afraid of dogs. True,
she tried to hide her fear and aversion for Harry's sake, but she had a
nervous dread of some member of the family being bitten by the dog, and
only a few days before, Harry's father said: "My boy, I sometimes wish
you could make up your mind to give that dog away; your mother dislikes
dogs so much."

Remembering this, Harry did not consider it necessary to say anything
to his father about what he intended to do. His way down the street
led him past Colonel Bates' residence. He stopped at the door and rang
the bell, asking to see Colonel Bates. When that gentleman appeared he
said, though his voice trembled,

"Have you bought a dog for Frank yet?"

"No; have you made up your mind to part with yours?"

"Yes, sir; if your offer holds good for to-day."

"Certainly; walk in and we will settle the business. I am very glad; we
are going to a rather lonely place for the summer, and the dog will be
both a comfort and protection to Frank."

The transfer of property was made in the course of the morning, and,
strangely enough, Colonel Bates sat beside Harry that evening in the
meeting and caught the glitter of the gold piece which the boy dropped
into the basket as the collection was taken for the Indian Mission.
And this is what he thought: "Here's a boy who has made a sacrifice; he
has given that which cost him something, and I gave what I can spare as
well as not! for once _I_ will give something that I shall feel."

"Father, why didn't you buy those horses you were talking about?" asked
Frank Bates a few days later.

"Because I bought a dog for you instead!"

"But my Jack did not cost a thousand dollars!" said Frank, puzzled.

"That is just what it cost me," replied Colonel Bates, smiling at his
boy's bewildered looks. And then he told him the story of the gold
piece and his own sacrifice, and the boy, after a little silence had
fallen between them, said:

"Father, you need not buy the dog cart; the old pony phaeton will do.
Give me the money it would cost in gold pieces, please, and I will go
to the next missionary meeting and offer _my_ sacrifice."

                                               FAYE HUNTINGTON.


OUR MISSION BAND.

THE president of our Band appointed, at the beginning of the year,
twelve girls and boys to take charge of the Band Meetings, one for each
month. When Lucia Lawrence read the little slip of paper upon which was
written her subject, and the month for which she was assigned, she said
brightly,

"I don't know a single thing about Persia, but I can find out."
And I am going to tell you just a few of the things she found out
about Persia. She found that in July last the semi-centennial of the
beginning of the missionary work among the Nestorians at Oroomia was
celebrated. More than fifteen hundred Nestorians came to the jubilee on
the college grounds.

"College grounds!" exclaimed Lucia's brother Tom as the two sat
together working up the programme, for this brother and sister were
accustomed to study and work together, "do you mean to say that they
have a college over there?"

"Yes; there are schools of all grades in Persia," replied Lucia. "The
first school was opened in a cellar with only seven small children;
but now there are village schools, high schools, seminaries for boys
and girls, a college and theological seminary."

"Are there many who attend these schools?" asked Tom.

"I do not know what you would call many; I should think it was a large
number, all things considered, when they can count the day-school
pupils by thousands and the boarding-school students by hundreds. But
the population of Persia is between seven and eight million, and there
are only seven Mission stations in the whole country. Five of these are
under the management of the Presbyterian Board of America, and two are
under the care of the English Church Missionary Society."

"It seems like putting little bits of wedges into a narrow crack in a
big rock and thinking to split it by pounding with a hammer. The wedges
go all to pieces and the rock stays just as it was."

"But, Tom, if your wedges are of iron, with power enough in the arm
that strikes the blows, the rock is bound to yield."

"Yes; but sometimes people use up a lot of wedges and mallets too."

"Well, these missionaries who had given their lives as wedges to make
an opening for the Gospel, were only too glad to be used in the service
of Christ. That is what wedges are made for, I suppose, to be hammered
and go to pieces at last."

"But what did they do at this jubilee? That is what I want to find
out," said Tom.

"Just what we do in this country when we celebrate. They sold tickets
which entitled the holders to the privilege of spending the night on
the grounds, and also to their meals. The women were made comfortable
in the college building, but many of the men had to sleep out of doors.
A large booth had been built for the meeting, and men and women told
the story of the last fifty years. They had 'papers' prepared. Some
of them, on female education, were written by native women who had
been educated in the schools. They told about the native churches,
about the medical work of the Missions, and about the hospital; you
know the only hospital in Persia was built by the missionaries. The
history of the work of Miss Fidelia Fiske, and of Mrs. Grant and Miss
Rice were given. There was one old woman who came a long distance,
part of the way on foot, and that over a rough mountainous road, to
attend the celebration; she was one of Miss Fiske's first girls. Seems
to me she might have told a story worth hearing. The history of the
Hamadan Mission is interesting. Miss Montgomery says, 'What hath God
wrought? Come and see his work in Hamadan.' Nine years only since the
first missionary was stationed there, and now a church of seventy-five
members. A weekly prayer meeting and a woman's prayer meeting; a
Sunday-school and several day schools. But this work is done under the
most trying circumstances, without either church or school buildings.
The schools are gathered in private houses, and in summer the preaching
and other church services are held in the yard of Miss Montgomery's
house and in winter in the house. It just seemed to me when I read
about the work in Hamadan that I wanted to be rich. I should think some
wealthy man would want to build a church there."

"It seems as though there is such a wide crack there a big wedge would
go in and do good work."

"There is another thing which is encouraging," said Lucia, "and that
is the fact that the people have the Bible in their own language; that
is a big wedge, because you see if they once get the Bible into their
homes the work will go on faster. The women too are being educated.
There was a strong prejudice against the education of women, but that
is wearing away and of course the influence of educated Christian
mothers will be a great help. Now, Tom, I am going to give you the
station at Hamadan for your topic at the meeting, and I shall give Ella
the fire worshipers, and Dick will tell us about the Mussulmans. Then
I must find somebody who will give an account of the work at Oroomiah.
O, dear! there is so much about Persia that the hour will not begin to
hold it all."

"Well, you may leave something to piece out my hour with. I don't
believe I can ever find enough to fill up."

"What is your topic?" asked Lucia.

"Mexico; and I don't know a thing about it."

Lucia expressed her sympathy by laughing at him, and saying, "Just wait
until you study it up!"

                                               FAYE HUNTINGTON.


SELECTION FOR RECITATION.

WHY DID YOU NOT COME BEFORE?

    [An aged Hindoo woman, while first hearing the Gospel,
    said, "Why did you not come before? My hair has grown
    gray waiting for the good news."]

    AN aged woman, poor and weak,
    She heard the mission teacher speak;
    The slowly-rolling tears came down
    Upon her withered features brown.
    "What blessed news from yon far shore--
    Would I had heard it long before.

    "O, I have bowed at many a shrine,
    When youth and health and strength were mine;
    How earnestly my soul has striven
    To find some gleam of light from heaven;
    But all my toil has been in vain--
    These gods of stone but mocked my pain.

    "A weary pilgrimage I've trod,
    To win some favor from my god;
    And all my jewelled wealth I've laid
    Beneath the dark Pagoda's shade;
    But still, the burden on my breast
    Bowed head and heart with sore unrest.

    "Now, I have waited many a day,
    My form is bent, my hair is gray;
    But still the blessed words you bear
    Have charmed away my long despair;
    O sisters, from your happy shore,
    Would you had sent to me before!

    "O, precious is the message sweet
    I hear your kindly lips repeat;
    It bids me weep for joy again;
    My stony eyes were dry with pain;
    My weary heart with joy runs o'er--
    Ah, had you come to me before!

    "How welcome is the glorious name
    Of Jesus, who to save me came.
    And shall I live when death is past?
    And may I all my burdens cast
    On Him? And is His mercy free?
    Not bought with gifts? Such news for me!

    "Yes, please forgive me when I say,
    I've needed this so many a day.
    In your glad homes, did ye not know
    How India's tears of sorrow flow?
    If you had known on that bright shore,
    Surely you would have come before!"
             --MISS P. J. OWENS, _Methodist Protestant._

[Illustration: LITTLE MISSION WORKERS AT MOTHER'S KNEE.]


[Illustration: The P.S. CORNER]

_Maud_ from Minnesota. Yes, I wrote the book which was your Christmas
present. I am glad you like it. I think you will like the closing of
the story about "Nettie and Jerry," but I must not tell you how it
ends, for that would lessen the interest. "In a minute" is a very
troublesome creature; I rejoice that you are going to get rid of his
company.

_Winnie_ from Pennsylvania. A "temper" is a very good servant, but
makes a bad master. If you succeed in keeping rule over yours, as I
know you will if you try, remembering the "Whisper Motto," you will be
much happier and more useful than you could possibly be if it ruled you.

_Deck_ and _Wilder_ from Minnesota. Yes, indeed, your letter shall
be published, and I hope "papa" will enjoy it as much as I did. I am
also much obliged to "sister" for writing for you. Still, I hope you
will write me a letter all yourselves, as soon as you can, and let
me know how you succeed. I am truly glad you have resolved not to
"contradict each other." Do you know I believe Satan likes to hear
people contradict better than he likes almost any other fault which
well brought up, truthful people have.

_Newton_ from Pennsylvania. My boy, we welcome you with pleasure. To
squarely own a fault is sometimes half the battle. You cannot be too
careful of the words you speak to "mother." Cross words sometimes sting
and burn after the mothers are gone. Watch carefully, and resolve to be
a joy and comfort to your mother so long as you have one.

_Rachel_ from Kentucky. These "hasty tempers!" You have only to read
the answers to the Pansies from month to month to discover how many
are troubled with them. It is a wise thing to begin very early in
life to keep them under control. About the habit of "forgetfulness,"
it sometimes grows on people so rapidly that they injure all their
prospects in life by it. You do well to watch it.

_Emma_ from Massachusetts. It would be very pleasant to the Pansies to
hear the story of some one whom you succeed in "Helping." Will you tell
it for us? I hope the badge has reached you long ago, and is a comfort.

_Ned_ from Massachusetts. Good for you, my brave young soldier! A
pledge against all that can intoxicate, and against tobacco, is a grand
thing. I hope every Pansy in the garden will follow your example. So
you are tempted to say "I don't want to?" Sometimes that isn't a bad
thing to say. If anybody coaxes you to do wrong, I hope you will always
say boldly, "I don't want to." But if it is something you know you
ought to do, suppose you rush right off and set about it so quickly
that your tongue will not have time to speak the words. How will that
do?

_Bessie_ and _Helen_ form North Carolina. Bless your dear hearts, of
course you will not fail! Don't think of such a thing. When a pledge is
right to take, and therefore right to keep, just shut your lips firmly
and say, "We shall succeed, because we ought to, and what we ought to
do, we can." Glad to enroll you.

_Iya_ from Minnesota. I wonder if I have the name right? I am not sure.
I hope your badge gave you help and pleasure. Oh, no, it costs nothing
to belong to the P. S. but a good strong tussle with one's faults.

_Arthur_ from Massachusetts. My boy, if I should put our roll of honor
in THE PANSY, there would be room for nothing else. There are thousands
and thousands of names! Hurrah for the temperance pledge! I feel like
giving a hearty cheer for every boy who signs it. I wonder how many
Pansies we have who have done so? Wouldn't it be nice to know? Dear me,
I hope you are not a lazy boy! Because they are almost certain to make
lazy men. Don't be a lazy Pansy, please.

_Cora_ from South Carolina. So glad to hear the badge is helping you.
Give my love to Daisy and little Alice; you will have to be a very
careful older sister in order to help them, will you not? So your dear
father has gone to Heaven? Poor little Blossom! I know how you miss
him. You must be a special flower for your dear mamma now, shedding all
the perfume you can around her.

_Martha_ from Massachusetts. Yes, I know all about how easy it is to
"answer back," and I know just what a trial it is to the mothers. You
do well to make a great effort to break the power of the habit. Getting
up in the morning isn't the easiest work in the world for a great many
people. I knew a lady who said she was obliged to spring out of bed as
soon as her eyes were opened, because if she waited five minutes it
seemed to her that it was not possible to get up! I suspect, my dear
Blossom, that you have a good mother. There is nothing which needs more
careful guarding than what we read. Make a rule to read nothing that
mother does not approve.

_Lena_ from New York. Glad to hear from Lena. These dear mothers are
worth minding the very minute they speak. I almost know you will keep
your pledge.

_Cora_ from Indian Territory. Welcome, dear Cora, to our Pansy bed. I
am sorry you have to bloom all alone in your far-away home. Cannot you
find some more Pansies who would bloom if they had a chance? Try. I
know all about what a nuisance it is to have people around who do not
put away their "things." At this moment there lies a cap in the very
centre of my study table among the papers. It belongs to a boy who is
shouting at somebody in the kitchen to know if they have the least
idea where his cap is! He spends an immense amount of time looking for
things that ought to be hanging on their hooks, or lying properly on
their shelves, and would be, I believe, if they could only walk.

_Nettie_ from Ohio. I hope your PANSY reaches you regularly, my dear
little girl, and that it gives you a great deal of comfort. You see
your "prayer" was answered in just the way you most wanted. Our Father
in Heaven always answers all prayer, but sometimes he has to say "No"
because He can tell whether what we have asked is the best thing.

_Edwin_ from New York. My boy, if you have done a "kind act" each day
since you took your pledge, you must have some pleasant stories to tell
which the Pansies would like to hear. Cannot you write out one of them
for us?

_Andrew_ from Illinois. O the teeth! I am very glad you have pledged to
take care of them. I know a boy who says he "cannot" remember to brush
his, only on Sundays, and I am very much afraid the consequence will
be, they will not be worth brushing by the time he is a man. Thank you
for being a worker for THE PANSY. I know of no better way to show that
you like the magazine than to try to get others to take it.

_Ethelwyn_ from Pennsylvania. How many people have you helped, my dear?
And how many ways have you discovered in which you can help others? Can
we be helpful without speaking a word? One of the most helpful little
people I know is a deaf and dumb girl. How do you suppose she manages
it?

_Minnie_ from Ohio. Dear little friend, it is very easy to be
"impatient." There is a little girl of my acquaintance who became so
impatient with a door which would not open that she knocked it with
her knee. Now it happened that in her pocket was a small cushion with
needles on it, and the knock sent a fine needle into her knee, which
caused her dreadful pain and kept her from taking a step for many
weeks. She used to say, "Oh, dear, if I only _hadn't_!"

_Willie_ from Ohio. I like your pledge. When a boy has a good father
and mother, and pledges himself always to obey them in everything, he
is about as safe as he can be in this world; especially if they are
Christian people, who say to him, "My boy, your first duty is to give
yourself to the Lord Jesus to obey him in all things."

_Jessie_ from Colorado. I wish you had sent me a copy of the
"Exercise," "Jesus Our Star." It must have been very beautiful, and
perhaps the Pansies would like to use it in their Sabbath-schools.
Perhaps you can send us a copy for next Christmas? How many presents
you received! What did you do for those who had none?

_Frank_ from Michigan. So, my seven-year-old Blossom, you sometimes
get angry, do you? That is bad; the perfume of angry flowers is very
disagreeable. It is well you have taken the pledge to overcome.

_Inez_ from Indiana. You are not alone in your fault, my darling. It is
as natural for people to want their own way, as it is to breathe. The
important thing is, to be very pleasant about giving it up, when for
any reason you cannot, or ought not to have it. This is a thing well
worth trying for.

_Anne_ from Washington. I was very deeply interested in your letter,
and have great sympathy for you in your great affliction. What a
wonderful and blessed thing it will be if all the members of your large
family meet in Heaven! Are you doing all you can to make sure of that
happy meeting?

_Florence_ from New York. A letter "all to yourself" is something I
cannot give, my Blossom, much as I would like to. Don't you see it
would not be fair to the others? I think you have the best possible
sort of "pet." Finger nails are very useful things, and have a way of
looking very badly if they are forgotten. I am glad you are going to
care for yours.

_Edith_ and _Lilian_ from Massachusetts. I am always glad to welcome
two sisters; I think they can be such helps to each other. We are
delighted to accept "Grandma" as an "honorary member." We have a
special and tender love for all the dear grandmas. I have not the least
doubt but she will keep her beautiful pledge to try to make somebody
happy every day; and I can imagine how happy you two can make her if
she sees you trying.

_Robert_ from Massachusetts. So you "don't like to mind quickly?" Well,
never mind whether you like it or not, if you succeed in doing it. I
think myself it requires a good deal of decision to accomplish it, and
I don't know of any habit more important to acquire, so I welcome you
with pleasure.

_Pauline_ from Massachusetts. My little "wilful" Blossom! A will is a
very good thing if you make a servant of it, and oblige it to do just
the right thing; but when one gets to be its slave, oh, dear! I am glad
you have begun early to train it aright.

_Daisy_ from New York. Poor finger nails! How would you like to be
bitten every time you plucked up courage and grew a little. Don't treat
your faithful little servants so badly. "Clayton" is very nearly right.
We can do almost anything we try hard to do, that is if it is right
that we should do it. For, back of this idea lies a great truth: God
never gives us any command which is too hard for us to obey. It is very
easy to get angry, and sometimes hard to break the habit; but it can be
done.

_Lulu_ from Virginia. Here is another little Southern Blossom who wants
to overcome "all" her faults. Brave little girl! I am sure you will
succeed much better than those who never think about their faults at
all.

_Emma_ from Connecticut. Did she have so many faults that she couldn't
count them? Poor little robin! Still I suspect that is the honest truth
about every one of us. We are great bundles of faults. If you try with
wide-open eyes to overcome each as it appears to you, you will keep a
very important pledge.

_Arthur Fred_ from Rhode Island. My boy, I can sympathize with "mamma."
I am not sure that I know a more troublesome small habit than the one
of moving slowly. Especially when one is waiting for you. Did you ever
hear of the boy who lost his life because he waited to say "What for?"
when told to bend his head? I could tell you of a little girl who lost
a long delightful journey because she moved so slowly across a railroad
depot that the train went off and left her behind.

_Bertha_ from Maine. "Getting mad!" Oh, dear! what a sorrowful fault
for a little Bertha. The "Whisper Motto," my dear, is "For Jesus'
Sake." It is called so because though we may be often in places where
we could not whisper to our father or mother or any earthly friends,
it is not possible to go where we could not speak to Jesus, and get
his help. If you control your temper for Jesus' sake, you will surely
succeed.

_Lena_ from Massachusetts. "Little sister" will have a much happier
life because of your pledge. And she will probably make a better woman
if she lives, because of it. If sisters only knew how much they could
help each other, by watching their words, I think they would take your
pledge.

_Helen_ from Connecticut. You are right, my friend, everybody has "need
of patience." I don't suppose you will find a day in your life but you
will need a large stock of it to draw from. You do well to begin early
to gather it.

_Jessie_ from Connecticut. We are glad to enroll you among our number.
There is no doubt but that you and your friend can be great helps to
each other. Patient people, those who can be patient with little trials
or annoyances, are sadly needed in this world. I heard a gentleman say
of a quiet little lady once, that she had a remarkable mind. "How do
you know?" I asked, for I was aware that he had not talked much with
her. "Because," he said, "I saw her keep a perfectly quiet face and
gentle manner under a series of annoying circumstances; and only people
with very cultured minds or hearts can do that."

_Laura_ from New Jersey. Your plan for getting up a P. S. is an
excellent one. I hope you will write and tell us how you succeed. We
are very glad to welcome Andrew. I wish all the boys in the country
would take his pledge to keep their arms off the table. Wouldn't the
mothers rejoice!

_Anita Harriet_ and _Ada Maud_. Welcome, dear little sisters, who write
such nice letters. Does the old giant Impatience trouble you so much,
Anita? I suspect about the time he comes along, Giant Cross gets hold
of Maud. Am I right? Those two are very fond of working together. You
are wise to join hands in fighting them.

_Harvey_ and _Lillie_ from New York. A brother and sister starting out
together; that is good. Harvey, my boy, I don't often get a letter
which gives me more pleasure than did yours. It is not easy work that
you have undertaken, it is true, but you have a great Helper on your
side. As soon as I can manage it, we must get up a mammoth temperance
organization from the members of the P. S. As for the little sister,
her sweet and thoughtful pledge will be helpful to you, as well as to
herself.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

In reading my magazine I found you would like to know how your Pansies
spent Christmas. I spent mine very pleasantly; we had a small tree
in our sitting-room, with presents from papa and mamma, and all the
family. In the evening sister went to the organ and played some sweet
pieces, and we all joined in the singing. Then we went up to grandpa's.
I think the day was filled with pleasant things.

Dear Pansy, I do try to keep my pledge. I try hard to keep things in
their proper places; but I find I need to be very watchful, and to ask
for a great deal of help from God. Mamma has just written to Boston to
renew my subscription to THE PANSY. It is rather late, but I hope not
too late to wish you a Happy New Year.

                                           Lovingly yours,
                                                LANETTA BRIGGS.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

I want to join the P. S. because I have many faults, and I think the
badge would help me. I believe my worst fault is being careless. Last
year I raised some strawberries, and in that way earned the money for
my PANSY. I hope to make enough this year to take it again. I can
hardly wait for the next number to come. I would like to have your
photograph if you have any to sell. I try to remember our "Whisper
Motto." This is the first letter I ever wrote.

                                           Your friend,
                                              GEORGE CROSLEY.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

I have a good many faults, but I think my temper is the worst. That is
when I get out of patience I am _awful mad_! Don't that sound dreadful?
I am trying to control it, and I know THE PANSY helps me. I like it
better than all the papers and magazines in the world. Thank you for
your good stories. I wish you a Happy New Year, not in words, but from
my heart.

                                           Your dear friend,
                                               WILLIE PARSONS.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

I write to you to promise three things:

1st. I promise to avoid the use of slang language of all descriptions.

2nd. I promise to avoid being irritable.

3rd. I promise to get as many people to sign the temperance pledge as I
can.

                                                  HARVEY ROMER.

I have signed the temperance pledge and would have tried to carry out
my third promise before but I did not know where to get pledges.

I am aware that what I undertake is not easy to perform, but I am one
of Jesus' followers and I know he will help me if I ask him. I hope
also that the badge will remind me of my pledge, and the whisper motto
encourage me to perform it.

                                           Yours Very Truly,
                                               HARVEY ROMER.

P. S. I am a subscriber to the Pansy and would like a badge.

    H. R.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

My brother Milton and I take THE PANSY this year, and I want to be one
of your little Pansies. I am seven years old, and can read and make
letters and figures on my slate. I am trying to be a good boy, and if
you will let me be one of your Blossoms, I will try to be better every
day, and will promise not to drink any wine or cider, or anything that
will make people drunk, and to be like the little boy my grandma read
about in THE PANSY, who signed the pledge when he was such a little
boy. I say my prayers, and go to Sunday-school when I am well. I am
sick now, have been in bed for two days, and my grandma reads to me out
of THE PANSY. We have some pretty pansies in our flower garden in the
spring, and when they bloom I shall think of Pansy, and maybe I will
send you some. My brother Milton has written to you, and I send twelve
cents to pay for one of our badges. Warren wants to join too--says he
is going to try to be good every day, but we think he is too little--he
is only three years old. Don't you think he had better wait till he is
a little bigger? With love from

                               Your little Blossom, D. JEMISON TITLOW.

I can write my own name, but not very good yet.

    - - - - - - - - -

DEAR PANSY:

My papa takes THE PANSY for me this year, and I want to be one of your
little Pansies. I am a little boy five years old, and live away down
on the Eastern shore of Virginia. I go to school and am in my Second
Reader and spelling-book, and make letters and figures on my slate. I
can't write yet, so my papa is writing this for me. I try to be a good
boy, but I want to be better, and am going to try and mind my papa and
mamma every day, and help them all I can. I also promise not to drink
any wine or cider, or anything to make me drunk. I say my prayers
every night, and ask the Lord to bless my papa and mamma and brothers,
and make me a good boy. I have a brother named Jemison who is seven
years old, and a little brother named Warren who is three years old.
Warren says naughty words sometimes. He says he is going to stop, and
wants to be one of your Pansies, but I think he is too little. Jemmie
is going to write to you and send twelve cents to pay for a badge. I
go to Ocean Grove sometimes, and if I go this summer I hope I will see
you. My papa gave me a copy-book to-day, and I am going to learn to
write, so that I can write to you myself. I must now close, with love,
from

                              Your little Blossom, MILTON R. TITLOW.


A FAMILY FLIGHT OVER EGYPT AND SYRIA.

I KNOW you are acquainted with the Hales, Edward Everett and Miss
Susan; therefore you know, without my telling you, that they write
thoroughly delightful books. But I wonder if you are acquainted with
the Horners? Not the family of "Little Jack Horner" who "sat in a
corner," but some friends of the Hales who took delightful journeys
all over the world. What I want of you is to accompany them, and
have a good time, and learn more about the world we live in than you
imagined you could without bidding good-by to your father and mother,
and spending a great deal of money. This trip is very cheap indeed; in
fact, if you belong to the P. S.--as of course you do--it will actually
cost you only one dollar and fifty cents! Who ever heard of travelling
over Egypt and Spain for a dollar and fifty cents! For the matter of
that, if you are not particular about the dress, and will choose one a
little plainer, you may save thirty cents and go for a dollar-twenty.
The book has nearly four hundred pages, and a great many pictures. It
is beautifully bound, and printed on the best of paper. I do not know
how you could have a prettier ornament for your book table than it
offers.

But the best way of helping you to understand how well the book is
written, is to give you a piece of it, and I therefore let you have a
peep at Damascus with the Horner family:


DAMASCUS.

One of the first things the Horners did was to go to the top of the
minaret of the city gate, for the view which is presented there of the
town.

They saw below them a plain of flat roofs, broken here and there by
a white cupola, and a tall minaret, and the large dome of the great
mosque.

At their feet was the beginning of a narrow lane, winding along
as far as the eye could follow it. This was the "street called
straight,"--straight, meaning narrow; for it certainly would not be
called straight in Philadelphia. In the Roman period of Damascus a
noble street extended through the city in the same direction, and
excavations made under the present Straight street have revealed
fragments of a Corinthian colonnade which adorned it. For, during the
great age since the founding of Damascus, and in the many _evèuements_
it has experienced, one set of buildings after another has been
destroyed, so that, as at Jerusalem, there is supposed to be layer upon
layer of demolished cities to a great depth, underlying the present one.

[Illustration: PUBLIC GARDEN, DAMASCUS.]

In the distance they saw Mount Hermon, snow-covered at the summit.
A walk through this street led them past scenes of the massacre
of 1860, and other interesting sites; then, under a low Roman arch,
they entered the region of the bazaars. This reminded them of Cairo,
"only more so." The same narrow streets, and same open fireplaces
as Bessie had called them, where the merchants sat cross-legged, in
front of little shelves, on which were piled their stuffs; but at
Damascus there was a greater variety of strange and gorgeous materials,
rich and splendid. They could not resist the fascination of these
shops, and bought a good many things, Hassan doing the bargaining,
which consisted in a long and violent argument between him and the
shopkeeper, ending in a mutual compromise. Both parties love these
tilts of the tongue, and it is a regular part of shopping in the East.
The dealer demands a price which he does not dream of receiving, and
Hassan mentions a figure which he knows he shall have to raise. The
squabble became sometimes violent, but after awhile the repetition was
tedious, especially as our Americans did not understand a word of it.
Miss Lejeune saw some pretty little damask napkins, for which her soul
longed, bordered with red and yellow stripes.

"Well, Hassan," said Mr. Horner, "you may begin the fight over these;"
and while it went on, the party turned their attention to the crowds
flocking by in the narrow streets, dressed in the brilliant colors of
the Orient: the men with gay turbans, and full trousers of every bright
tint, the women veiled, in dark garments. A man went by with a cooling
drink, rattling tumblers to attract attention; a lemon was stuck on the
pointed top of the tin vessel he carried it in. Tommy tried it, and
pronounced it "not bad!"

[Illustration: A HOUSE TOP SCENE, DAMASCUS.]

An expedition on donkeys, which was shared only by Mr. Hervey, Miss
Lejeune and Bessie, while the others were busy in bazaars, was to
Salahiyah, a suburb of Damascus. They rode at first through a narrow
lane, with high blank walls on either side. The houses of Damascus are
all built in this way, with all their pleasantness concentrated within,
upon an interior court. The street walls are without windows or access,
except through heavy doors. This is on account of the numerous attacks
the inhabitants have received, leading them to protect their outer
works.

They stopped before a dingy little door, and knocked. They had to
stoop to enter, when lo! they heard the sound of a rushing fountain,
and found themselves standing on a balcony surrounded by orange and
lemon-trees. Roses and fleur-de-lis were blooming along the paths of a
lovely garden, through which poured a deep, though narrow river, with
its edge tufted with maiden-hair and grasses that danced in the water.
A slowly turning wheel lifted water from the stream to feed the little
fountain.

The gentlemanly proprietor, in a turban and gown of striped red and
blue cotton, spread a carpet and brought chairs for them to repose
upon, while he entertained them by playing upon a musical instrument
something like a fiddle, and there they ate their picnic lunch, which
Hassan, who accompanied them, had brought. This was his surprise. He
had proposed the expedition, and was disappointed that the whole party
did not join it; but for some reason, they had not understood the
extent of the plan, and so the others lost seeing the pretty garden.

There is much more about Damascus, for which I have not room. There is
much to delight you in the book. I hope you will be able to own it, and
will give it careful reading.

                                                        PANSY.


The April issues of the popular

[Illustration: WIDE AWAKE ART PRINTS]

will be the following:

APRIL 1. "THE PIPERS," by Jessie Curtis Shepherd. This charming picture
is the very spirit of springtime--springtime of the greening earth,
springtime of life, in the gay procession of children blowing on
dandelion pipes.

APRIL 15. "ON EASTER DAY," by W. L. Taylor. This Easter picture is an
exquisite idyl of the maid and the lily.

_Already issued:_

    Oct. 1. LITTLE BROWN MAIDEN.          _Kate Greenaway._
    Oct. 15. ON NANTUCKET SHORE.        _F. Childe Hassam._
    Nov. 1. IN GRANDMOTHER'S GARDEN.       _W. T. Smedley._
    Nov. 15. THE DREAM PEDLER.             _E. H. Garrett._
    Dec. 1. MORNING.                       _F. H. Lungren._
    Dec. 15. EVENING.                      _F. H. Lungren._
    Jan. 1. WILD DUCKS.                  _Charles Volkmar._
    Jan. 15. IN HOLLAND.                _F. Childe Hassam._
    Feb. 1. THE THREE FISHERS.           _Thomas Hovenden._
    Feb. 15. UNDER THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.     _F. H. Lungren._
    Mar. 1. TWO CONNOISSEURS.           _T. W. Wood, N. A._
    Mar. 15. LOST.                          _W. L. Taylor._

The WIDE AWAKE ART PRINTS are sent post-paid in pasteboard tubes for 50
cents each. Half yearly subscription, $5.50; yearly, $10.00.

    THE PRESS SAYS

of the beauty and art-educational value of the ART PRINTS:

"_Will delight the artist, the art lover, and every friend of
art-education._"--Boston Beacon.

"_Fine examples._"--Art Union, N. Y.

"_Deserve to be most popular._"--Boston Sunday Times.

"_Will give unfailing and refined pleasure._"--Boston Transcript.

"_We can very cordially praise the new_ WIDE AWAKE ART PRINTS. _They
are wholly charming. We most unhesitatingly pronounce them admirable
specimens of reproductive art, giving the character of the original
work, and even the technical qualities of the artist's handling to a
very remarkable degree. We wish that such charming gems of art could be
in every home ... for they will be a source of very great pleasure ...
and have a very important educational value._"--Boston Post.




WONDER STORIES OF SCIENCE.

    =Price, 1.50.=


To improve as well as to amuse young people is the object of these
twenty-one sketches, and they fill this purpose wonderfully well. What
boy can fail to be interested in reading an account of an excursion
made in a balloon and a race with a thunder-storm? And is there a girl
who would not enjoy an afternoon in the Christmas-card factory? It is
a curious fact that only one hundred and thirty years ago the first
umbrella was carried in London, much to the amusement of the ignorant,
and now there are seven millions made every year in this country. And
who would believe it possible that there was a large factory full of
women who earned their living by making dolls' shoes. A bright girl or
boy who insists to know something about the work done in the world,
who does it, and how it is done, cannot fail to enjoy these stories.
The writers are all well-known contributors to children's periodical
literature, and the book will be a welcome addition to any child's
library, and might be used with advantage as a reading book in schools.




    =Books particularly adapted for=

=SUPPLEMENTARY READING FOR SCHOOLS.=

=History of the American People.= By Arthur Gilman. 12mo, very fully
illustrated. $1.50.

=Young Folks' Histories.= By Charlotte M. Yonge. Six volumes, cloth,
illustrated. $1.50 each.

=Popular Biographies=, descriptive of such eminent men as Longfellow,
Franklin and others. $1.50 each.

=Our Business Boys.= 60 cents.

=Health and Strength Papers for Girls.= 60 cts.

=In Case Of Accident.= The simplest methods of meeting the common
accidents and emergencies. Illust. 60 cts.

=Temperance Teachings of Science.= 60 cents.

=A Boy's Workshop.= By a Boy. $1.00.

=How Success is Won.= By Sarah K. Bolton. $1.00.

=Boys' Heroes.= By Edward Everett Hale. $1.00.

=Children of Westminster Abbey.= By Rose G. Kingsley. $1.00.

=Old Ocean.= By Ernest Ingersoll. $1.00.

=Dooryard Folks.= By Amanda B. Harris. $1.00.

=Great Composers.= By Hezekiah Butterworth. $1.00.

=Travelling Law School.= By Benjamin Vaughan Abbott. $1.00.

=Pleasant Authors.= By Amanda B. Harris. $1.00.

=Underfoot.= By Laura D. Nichols. Geology in story. $1.25; cloth, $1.50.

=Overhead.= By Annie Moore and Laura D. Nichols. "Astronomy under the
guise of a story." $1.25; cloth, $1.50.

_Special rates will be made for introduction of our publications into
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=D. LOTHROP & CO., Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston, Mass.=




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PROSPECTUS--=BABYLAND>=--FOR 1886.

The Magazine for the Babies, this coming year, in addition to its
bright pictures, and gay little jingles, and sweet stories, will have
some especial delights for both Mamma and Baby.

=THE MAGIC PEAR=

will provide Twelve Entertainments of dainty jugglery and funny
sleight-of-hand for the nursery pencils. This novelty is by the
artist-humorist, M. J. Sweeney ("Boz").

=ALL AROUND THE CLOCK=

will give Baby Twelve tiny Lessons in Counting, each with wee verses
for little lips to say, and pictures for bright eyes to see, to help
the little mind to remember.

=LITTLE CRIB-CURTAINS=

will give Mamma Twelve Sleepy-time Stories to tell when the Babies go
to cribs and cradles. In short, Babyland the whole year will be the
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_Beautiful and novel New Cover. Only Fifty Cents a year._


PROSPECTUS--=OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN=--FOR 1886.

    This magazine, for youngest readers, has earned golden
    gratitude from teachers and parents this past year.
    While its short stories and beautiful pictures have
    made it welcome everywhere as a general Magazine for
    Little Folks, its series of instructive articles have
    rendered it of unrivalled value to educators. For 1886
    several specialties have been prepared in accordance
    with the suggestions of teachers who wish to start
    their "little primaries" in the lines on which older
    brothers and sisters are being taught. As a beginning
    in American History, there will be twelve charming
    chapters about

=THE ADVENTURES OF COLUMBUS.=

    This story of the Great Discoverer, while historically
    correct and valuable, will be perfectly adapted to
    young minds and fitted to take hold upon a child's
    attention and memory; many pictures.

=LITTLE TALKS ABOUT INSECT LIFE=

    will interest the children in one branch of Natural
    History; with anecdotes and pictures.

=OUR COLORADO PETS=

    will describe wild creatures little known to children
    in general. These twelve stories all are true, and are
    full of life and adventure; each will be illustrated.

="ME AND MY DOLLS"=

    is a "cunning little serial story," written for
    American children by the popular English author, Miss
    L. T. Meade. It will have Twelve Full-page Pictures by
    Margaret Johnson.

    From time to time fresh "Stories about Favorite
    Authors" will be given, so that teachers and friends
    may have material for little literature lessons suited
    to young children.

_Seventy-five Full-page Pictures. Only $1.00 a year._


PROSPECTUS--=THE PANSY=--FOR 1886.

    For both week-day and Sunday reading, The Pansy, edited
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    parents. Among the more interesting features for 1886
    will be Pansy's serial story,

=REACHING OUT,=

    being a further account of "Little Fishers: and their
    Nets." The Golden Text Stories, under the title,
    "Six O'clock in the Evening," will be told by a dear
    old Grandma, who knows many interesting things about
    what happened to herself when she was a little girl.
    Margaret Sidney will furnish a charming story,

=ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON,=

    to run through the year. Rev. C. M. Livingston will
    tell stories of discoveries, inventions, books, people,
    places. Faye Huntington will be a regular contributor
    during the year. Pansy will take the readers with her
    wherever she goes, in papers under the title of

=WHERE I WENT, AND WHAT I SAW.=

    There will be, in each number, a selection from our
    best standard poets suitable for recitation in school
    or circle. From time to time colloquies for Mission
    Bands, or for general school exercises, will appear.
    There will be new and interesting books for the members
    of the Pansy Society, and, as before, a generous space
    will be devoted to answers to correspondents in the P.
    S. Corner.

_Fully Illustrated. Only $1.00 a year._

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[Illustration: PROSPECTUS WIDE AWAKE 1886]

A mother, whose five children have read WIDE AWAKE in her company from
its first number to its latest, writes: "_I like the magazine because
it is full of Impulses. Another thing--when I lay it down I feel as if
I had been walking on breezy hill-tops._"

_SIX ILLUSTRATED SERIALS:_

I. A MIDSHIPMAN AT LARGE.

II. THE CRUISE OF THE CASABIANCA.

Every boy who sailed in fancy the late exciting races of the _Puritan_
and the _Genesta_, and all lovers of sea stories, will enjoy these two
stories of Newport and Ocean Yachting, by CHARLES REMINGTON TALBOT.

III. A GIRL AND A JEWEL.

MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD, in this delicious White Mountain
Romance, writes her first young folks' magazine serial.

IV. DILLY AND THE CAPTAIN.

V. PEGGY, AND HER FAMILY.

MARGARET SIDNEY writes these two amusing Adventure Serials for Little
Folks. Thirty-six illustrations each.

VI. A Six Months' Story (title to be announced), by CHARLES EGBERT
CRADDOCK, author of _Down the Ravine_.


ROYAL GIRLS AND ROYAL COURTS.

By MRS. JOHN SHERWOOD. This series, brilliant and instructive, will
begin in the Christmas number and run through the year.


A CYCLE OF CHILDREN.

By ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS. Illustrations by Howard Pyle. Twelve historical
stories celebrating twelve popular holidays.

    =Master Sandys' Christmas Snapdragon.= Dec., 1611.
    =Mistress Margery's New Year's Pin-Money.= Jan., 1500.
    =Mr. Pepys' Valentine.= February, 1660.
    =The Last of the Geraldines.= March, 1535.
    =Diccon and the Wise Fools of Gotham.= April, 1215.
    =The Lady Octavia's Garland.= May, 184.
    =Etc., etc.=

_STORIES OF AMERICAN WARS._

Thrilling incidents in our various American warfares. Each story will
have a dramatic picture. The first six are:

    =The Light of Key Biscayne.=
    =Joel Jackson's Smack.=
    =A Revolutionary Turncoat.=
    =How Daniel Abbott Outwitted the Indians.=
    =In the Turtle Crawl.=
    =The Boy-Soldiers of Cherry Valley.=


_IN PERIL._

A romantic dozen of adventures, but all strictly true. Each story will
be illustrated. The first six are:

    =Saved by a Kite.=
    =Taz a Taz.=
    =In a Mica Mine.=
    =The Life Trail.=
    =The Varmint that Runs on the "Heigh-Ho!"=
    =A Strange Prison.=


YOUTH IN TWELVE CENTURIES.

A beautiful art feature. Twenty-four superb studies of race-types and
national costumes, by F. Childe Hassam, with text by M. E. B.


_FIRE-PLACE STORIES._

This article will be a notable feature of the Christmas number. The
rich illustrations include glimpses of Holland, Assyria, Persia,
Moorish Spain and New England, with two paintings in clay modelled
expressly for WIDE AWAKE, and reproduced in three tones.


_SOME SPECIAL ARTICLES:_

_L'ENFANT TERRIBLE TURK._ By HON. S. S. COX, U. S. Minister to Turkey.

_THE PRINCESS POCAHONTAS IN ENGLAND._ By MRS. RAYMOND BLATHWAYTH.
Illustrations include portrait from painting never before engraved.

_AUTOGRAPHS AND AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS._ By NORA PERRY. Racy and amusing.

_A GRAND PEACE-MEET._ By WILL P. HOOPER. An imposing Indian Ceremony;
with many pictures by the author.

_A SIXTEENTH CENTURY SCHOOLBOY._ By APPLETON MORGAN. The life of a lad
in Shakespeare's time.

_MY FIRST BUFFALO HUNT._ By GEN. JOHN C. FREMONT.

_THROUGH THE HEART OF PARIS._ By FRANK T. MERRILL. A pen and pencil
record of a trip down the Seine.

_THE DUMB-BETTY LAMP._ By HENRY BACON. Hitherto untold incidents in
connection with "Floyd Ireson's Ride."


_TWELVE BALLADS._

These are by twelve of the foremost women poets of America. Each ballad
will fill five to seven pictorial pages. The first six are:

=The Deacon's Little Maid.= A ballad of early New England. By MRS. A.
D. T. WHITNEY. Illustrations by Miss L. B. Humphrey.

=The Story of the Chevalier.= A ballad of the wars of Maria Theresa. By
MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. Illustrations by E. H. Garrett.

=The Minute Man.= A ballad of the "Shot heard round the World." By
MARGARET SIDNEY. Illustrations by Hy. Sandham.

=The Hemlock Tree.= A ballad of a Maine settlement. By LUCY LARCOM.
Illustrations by Edmund H. Garrett.

=The Children's Cherry Feast.= A ballad of the Hussite War. By NORA
PERRY. Illustrations by George Foster Barnes.

=Little Alix.= A ballad of the Children's Crusade. By SUSAN COOLIDGE.
Illustrations by F. H. Lungren.

Many other enjoyments are in readiness; among them a Thanksgiving poem
by Helen Jackson (H. H.), the last poem we can ever give our readers
from her pen; "A Daughter of the Sea-Folks," a romantic story of
Ancient Holland, by Susan Coolidge; "An Entertainment of Mysteries,"
by Anna Katherine Greene, author of the celebrated "detective novels;"
foreign MSS. and drawings by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Pennell; "Stoned by a
Mountain," by Rose G. Kingsley; a frontier-life story by Mrs. Custer,
author of _Boots and Saddles_; a long humorous poem by Christina
Rossetti; Arctic Articles by Lieut. Frederick Schwatka; "A Tiny Tale of
Travel," a prose story by Celia Thaxter; a "Trotty" story, by Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps; beautiful stories by Grace Denio Litchfield, Mary E.
Wilkins and Katherine B. Foote; a lively boys' story by John Preston
True; "Pamela's Fortune," by Mrs. Lucy C. Lillie; "'Little Captain' of
Buckskin Camp," by F. L. Stealey--in short, the magazine will brim over
with good things.


_THE C. Y. F. R. U. READINGS_

meet the growing demand for the _helpful_ in literature, history,
science, art and practical doing. The Course for 1885-86 includes

=I. Pleasant Authors for Young Folks.= (_American Series._) By AMANDA
B. HARRIS. =II. My Garden Pets.= By MARY TREAT, author of _Home Studies
in Nature_. =III. Souvenirs of My Time.= (_Foreign Series._) By MRS.
JESSIE BENTON FREMONT. =IV. Some Italian Authors and Their Work.= By
GEORGE E. VINCENT (son of Chancellor Vincent). =V. Ways to Do Things.=
By various authors. =VI. Strange Teas, Weddings, Dinners and Fetes.= By
their Guests and Givers. =VII. Search-Questions in English Literature.=
By OSCAR FAY ADAMS.

*** A good commission is paid for securing new subscribers, in cash or
premiums. Send for Premium List.

_WIDE AWAKE is only $3.00 a year._

=D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Franklin and Hawley Sts., Boston, Mass.,
U. S. A.=




THE HOUSEHOLD LIBRARY.

    $5.00 a Year, - - - - 50 cts. a Number.

The Choicest Works of Popular Authors, issued monthly.


A Special Inducement to all whose subscriptions are received before
June 15th. =A handsome three-shelf Bookshelf= will be presented to
each one whose yearly subscription is received before the above date.
Any subscriber sending us one NEW yearly subscriber will receive the
bookshelf as a premium. Express charges on the bookshelf to be paid by
the receiver.

    The works issued in this library are uniformly of a
    high standard and may well come under that class of
    literature styled "home fiction," a literature, that,
    while free from the flashy, sensational effect of much
    of the fiction of to-day, is, nevertheless, brilliant
    in style, fresh and strong in action, and of absorbing
    interest. It is a class that all the young folks, as
    well as the fathers and mothers and older brothers and
    sisters, may read with profit as well as great pleasure.

    =1. THE PETTIBONE NAME, by Margaret Sidney=, author
    of _The Five Little Peppers_, etc. It is a delightful
    story of New England life and manners, sparkling in
    style, bright and effective in incident, and of intense
    interest. There has been no recent figure in American
    fiction more clearly or skilfully drawn than Miss
    Judith Pettibone. Most of the characters of the book
    are such as may be met with in any New England village.

    =2. MY GIRLS. By Lida A. Churchill.= A story of four
    ambitious girls. Their struggles to realize their
    ambitions and their trials and successes, make a story
    of intense interest.

    =3. WITHIN THE SHADOW, by Dorothy Holroyd.= "The
    most successful book of the year." "The plot is
    ingenious, yet not improbable, the character drawing
    strong and vigorous, the story throughout one of
    brilliancy and power." "The book cannot help making a
    sensation."--_Boston Transcript._

    =4. FAR FROM HOME.= From the German of Johannes
    Van Derval. Translated by =Kathrine Hamilton=. A
    fascinating story of life and travel in foreign lands.

    =5. GRANDMOTHER NORMANDY. By the author of Silent
    Tom.= The story is fascinatingly told. The character
    of Grandmother Normandy, stern, relentless and
    unforgiving, almost to the last, is strongly drawn, and
    the author has shown much skill in the construction of
    the story.

    =6. AROUND THE RANCH. By Belle Kellogg Towne.= It is
    original, fresh, and written with great naturalness and
    power; its pathos is exquisitely touching. The opening
    scenes are laid in the Colorado mining regions.




LOTHROP'S YOUNG FOLKS' LIBRARY.

Twelve numbers mailed on receipt of $2.75, if ordered before July 15th.
The twenty-four volumes mailed on receipt of $5.00 if ordered before
July 15th.


Nothing so good and cheap is anywhere to be found. Each volume has 300
to 500 pages, clear type, illustrated. Price 25 cents. Postpaid.

    1. TIP LEWIS AND HIS LAMP, by Pansy.

    2. MARGIE'S MISSION, by Marie Oliver.

    3. KITTY KENT'S TROUBLES, by Julia A. Eastman.

    4. MRS. HURD'S NIECE, by Ella Farman Pratt, Editor of
    Wide Awake.

    5. EVENING REST, by J. L. Pratt.

    6. THE TRIPLE "E," by the author of Yensie Walton.

    7. SHINING HOURS, by a brilliant author.

    8. THE OLD STONE HOUSE, by Anne March (Constance
    Fennimore Woolson).

    9. BATTLES LOST AND WON, by George E. Merrill. A story
    of schoolboy life.

    10. THE JUDGE'S SONS, by Mrs. E. D. Kendall.

    11. SHELL COVE, by Rev. Z. A. Mudge.

    12. LUTE FALCONER, by the author of "Andy Luttrell." A
    story of rare interest.

These twelve volumes constitute the first year's series.


The twelve volumes announced below constitute the second year's series.

    13. FABRICS, by the author of "Finished, or Not."

    14. THE PRINCE AND THE PAGE, by Miss C. M. Yonge. A
    story of the last Crusade.

    15. MYRA SHERWOOD'S CROSS, AND HOW SHE BORE IT.

    16. THIS ONE THING I DO, by Mrs. A. E. Porter.

    17. SO AS BY FIRE, by Margaret Sidney.

    18. OLD SCHOOLFELLOWS, AND WHAT BECAME OF THEM.

    19. ROSE AND MILLIE, by the author of "Hester's Happy
    Summer."

    20. VEIL ON THE HEART (The), by Miss L. L. Phelps.

    21. THE NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE, by the author of "The New
    Commandment."

    22. FROM NIGHT TO LIGHT, by E. E. Brown.

    23. SURE; or, IT PAYS.

    24. SISTER ELEANOR'S BROOD, by Mrs. S. B. Phelps.


    =LOTHROP'S LIBRARY OF ENTERTAINING HISTORY.= Edited by
    ARTHUR GILMAN, M. A.

    =China.= By ROBERT K. DOUGLAS. (Just published.) The
    best summary of Chinese History, from earliest times to
    this day, ever published.

    =Alaska.= By E. RUHAMAH SCIDMORE. The only book yet
    issued in which anything like complete information
    concerning the history, resources, climate, scenery and
    people of this wonderful region, can be found.

    =America. The American People.= By ARTHUR GILMAN, M.
    A. Edition after edition of this remarkably attractive
    volume attest the universal verdict as to its value.

    =India.= By FANNY ROPER FEUDGE. A hand book in which
    nothing remains to be wished for.

    =Egypt.= By CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT. A marvel of
    painstaking historical writing, and an invaluable
    manual.

    =Spain.= By PROF. J. H. HARRISON. With fidelity to
    facts of history, the charm of its romance is here
    delightfully presented.

    =Switzerland.= By H. D. S. MCKENSIE. The story of the
    Mountain Republic and its brave people has had no
    better chronicler.

    Each volume, 100 illustrations, 12mo, extra cloth,
    $1.50.


    =THE FAMILY FLIGHT SERIES.= By EDWARD EVERETT HALE and
    MISS SUSAN HALE. Bds, $2; cloth, $2.50.

    =A Family Flight around Home.=

    =A Family Flight through France, Germany, Norway and
    Switzerland.=

    =A Family Flight over Egypt and Syria.=

    =A Family Flight through Spain.=

    =A Family Flight to Mexico.=

    History, Biography, Romance, Adventure, Amusement--in
    brief--entertainment and instruction delightfully
    blended, characterize these books. The material, unlike
    most books of the class, is obtained from original
    sources, and by personal travels. The illustrations are
    profuse and most attractive. They are unquestionably
    the most attractive books of the class, and are happily
    suited to adult, as well as youthful readers.


LOTHROP'S POPULAR BIOGRAPHIES.

Brief, attractive, and entertaining in style, authentic, and free from
any blemish of narrowness or partisanship, the books of this series
can be unhesitatingly commended. The volumes are unique in style,
handsomely bound, and illustrated, and sold at $1.50 each.

The list includes:

    =Charles XII.=, King of Sweden, by DE VOLTAIRE.

    =Lord Nelson=, by ROBERT SOUTHEY.

    =Heroes of American Discovery=, by DR. GEO. T. DAY.

    =David Livingston=, by J. S. ROBERTS.

    =Charles Dickens, George Peabody and Abraham Lincoln=,
    (separate volumes) by PHEBE A. HANAFORD.

    =Benjamin Franklin=, by JEREMIAH CHAPLIN.

    =Amos Lawrence=, by DR. W. R. LAWRENCE.

    =Israel Putnam=, by DR. I. N. TARBOX.

    =Daniel Webster=, by JOS. BANVARD.

    =Henry Wilson=, by ELIAS NASON.

    =Charles Sumner=, by J. D. CHAPLIN.

    =Horace Greeley=, by DR. W. L. CORNELL.

    =James A. Garfield=, by E. E. BROWN.

    =Bayard Taylor=, by R. H. CONWELL.

    =John G. Whittier=, by W. SLOANE KENNEDY.


LOTHROP'S V. I. F. SERIES.

No more brilliant and fascinating stories have appeared in recent times.

    =Within the Shadow=, by DOROTHY HOLROYD. Just issued.

    =The Pettibone Name=, by MARGARET SIDNEY.

    =Grandmother Normandy=, by the author of Silent Tom.

    =Around the Ranch=, by BELLE KELLOGG TOWNE.

    =After the Freshet=, by REV. E. A. RAND.

    =My Girls=, by LIDA A. CHURCHILL.

    =Far from Home=, from the German of Johannes Van
    Derval. Translated by KATHERINE HAMILTON.

The books of this series are 12mo, $1.25 each.


LOTHROP'S SPARE MINUTE SERIES.

An incomparable treasury of "best thoughts."

    =Thoughts that Breathe.= From DEAN STANLEY.

    =Cheerful Words.= From GEORGE MACDONALD.

    =The Might of Right.= From RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE.

    =True Manliness.= From THOMAS HUGHES.

    =Living Truths.= From CHARLES KINGSLEY.

    =Right to the Point.= From REV. THEO. L. CUYLER.

    =Many Colored Threads.= From GOETHE.

12 mo, $100 each.


GEORGE MACDONALD'S BOOKS.

As the American publishers of this popular author, D. Lothrop & Co.
offer the most attractive and acceptable edition of his works. Among
them are

    =Warlock o' Glenwarlock.=
    =Weighed and Wanting.=
    =Donald Grant.=
    =The Imagination, etc.=

12mo, $1.50 each. 20 vols. in box $30.00.


CHOICE MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS.

    =Odyssey.= A graphic prose translation by S. H. BUTCHER
    and ANDREW LANG. 12mo, $1.50.

    =Thucydides.= Translated by B. JOWETT. Introduction by
    DR. PEABODY of Harvard, and of inestimable value to the
    student of history and the classics. 8vo, $3.50.

    =American Explorations in the Ice Zones.= By PROF. J.
    E. NOURSE, U. S. N. Scholarly, of scientific value and
    of thrilling interest. 8vo, $3.50.

    =Bremen Lectures.= (Translated from the German by
    REV. D. HEAGLE.) Treatises on fundamental Religious
    Questions. 12mo, $1.00.

    =Cambridge Sermons.= Strong and versatile discourses
    delivered in Shepard Memorial Church, Cambridge, by DR.
    ALEXANDER MCKENZIE.

    =Story Of the Manuscripts.= By REV. GEO. E. MERRILL,
    with fac-similes of several new Testament Manuscripts.


    =LOTHROP'S READING UNION LIBRARY.= 10 vols. 12mo.
    Illustrated. $1.00 each.

    =Old Ocean.=
    =Magna Charta Stories.=
    =Pleasant Authors.=
    =How Success is Won.=
    =Door Yard Folks.=
    =Great Composers.=
    =A Boys' Workshop.=
    =Boy's Heroes.=
    =The Travelling Law School.=
    =The Children of Westminster Abbey.=

An invaluable series of instructive and pleasing books with which are
associated the names of Ernest Ingersoll, Amanda B. Harris, Arthur
Gilman, Hezekiah Butterworth, Benj. V. Abbott, Henry Randall Waite,
Edward E. Hale and Rose G. Kingsley.

    =Dean Stanley with the Children.= By FRANCES A.
    HUMPHREY. 12mo. Ill. $1.00.

    =How They Went to Europe.= By MARGARET SIDNEY. 16mo.
    Ill. $1.00.


LOTHROP'S HOUSEKEEPERS' LIBRARY.

    =Anna Maria's Housekeeping.= By MRS. S. D. POWER. 12mo.
    $1.00.

    =Cookery for Beginners.= By MARION HARLAN. 16mo. In
    extra cloth, blank pages. $1.00.

    =Twenty-Six Hours a Day.= By MARY BLAKE. 12mo. Extra
    cloth. $1.25.


    D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers and Booksellers.
    Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston, Mass.




THE POPULAR PANSY BOOKS.

The works of this popular author are universally acknowledged to be
among the very best of all books for Sunday-school reading. Earnest,
hopeful, practical, full of the spirit of Christian faith and courage,
they are also in the highest degree interesting.


COMPLETE LIST OF THE PANSY BOOKS.

_Each volume 12mo., $1.50._

    Chautauqua Girls at Home.
    Divers Women.
    Echoing and Reëchoing.
    Endless Chain (An).
    Ester Ried.
    Ester Ried Yet Speaking.
    Four Girls at Chautauqua.
    From Different Standpoints.
    Hall in the Grove (The).
    Household Puzzles.
    Julia Ried.
    King's Daughter (The).
    Links in Rebecca's Life.
    Mrs. Solomon Smith Looking On.
    Modern Prophets.
    Man of the House (The).
    New Graft on the Family Tree (A).
    Pocket Measure (The).
    Ruth Erskine's Crosses.
    Randolphs (The).
    Sidney Martin's Christmas.
    Those Boys.
    Three People.
    Tip Lewis and his Lamp.
    Wise and Otherwise.

_Each volume, 12mo., $1.25._

    Cunning Workmen.
    Dr. Deane's Way.
    Grandpa's Darlings.
    Miss Priscilla Hunter and my Daughter Susan.
    Mrs. Deane's Way.
    What She Said.

_Each volume, 12mo., $1.00._

    Five Friends.
    Mrs. Harry Harper's Awakening.
    Next Things.
    Pansy's Scrap Book.
    Some Young Heroines.

_Each volume, 12mo., 75 cents._

    Getting Ahead.
    Mary Burton Abroad.
    Six Little Girls.
    That Boy Rob.
    Two Boys.

_Each volume, 16mo., 75 cents._

    Bernie's White Chicken.
    Docia's Journal.
    Helen Lester.
    Jessie Wells.


MISCELLANEOUS.

    Hedge Fence (A). 16mo., 60c.

    Side by Side. 16mo., 60c.

    Pansy's Picture Book. 4to., boards, $1.50; cloth, $2.00.

    The Little Pansy Series. 10 vols., boards, $3.00;
    cloth, $4.00.

    Mother's Boys and Girls Library. 12 vols., quarto,
    boards, $3.00.


PANSY'S NEW BOOKS.

Among the new books by this favorite author, which Sunday-school
Superintendents and all readers of her previous books will wish to
order, are:--

=One Commonplace Day.= Pansy has brought out in this book a vivid,
lifelike story, full of strong incentives to right thinking and living.
12mo, cloth, $1.50.

=Interrupted.= Has all the charm of this author's style, grown riper
each year. 12mo, extra cloth, $1.50.

=In the Woods and Out.= Admirably suited to the needs of a large class
of young folks. It is composed of the choicest of short tales so
delightful at the twilight hour when the children clamor for "a story."
12mo, cloth, $1.00.

=The Browning Boys.= A fascinating story of the growth of two boys
who set out on their birthday to be helpful at home. By applying the
"golden texts" of the International Sunday-school lessons in their
every-day life, they, without swerving from the strictest sense of
right, are able to send their invalid father to Florida, and were the
means of his restoration to health. 16mo, cloth, 60 cents.

=A Hedge Fence.= A story that will be particularly pleasing to boys,
most of whom will find in its hero a fair representation of themselves.
16mo, 60 cents.

=An Endless Chain.= From the introduction, on the first page, of the
new superintendent of the Packard Place Sabbath-school, to the end,
there is no flagging of interest in this bright, fresh, wholesome
story. Illustrated. 12mo., $1.50.

=Side by Side.= Short illustrated stories from Bible texts for the help
of boys and girls in their every-day duties. 16mo., cloth, 60 cents.

=Christie's Christmas.= No more charming little heroine can be found
than the Christie of this volume, and the story of her journey to
spend Christmas, with the great variety of characters introduced, all
of them original and individual in their way, is perfectly novel and
interesting.

As a guide to teachers, rich in suggestions and directions for methods
of teaching, etc., there is nothing better than =Pansy's Scrap Book=.
12mo., cloth, illustrated, $1.00.

In fact all of Pansy's books have some special charm or attraction
which makes them a power for good wherever read.


JUST READY

The New Sunday-school Library, No. 11. 20 Volumes. Former prices, $1.25
and $1.50 each; net to Schools, $10.00.

New Pansy Primary Library. 20 Volumes. Net to Schools, $5.00.

    32 FRANKLIN ST., BOSTON, March, 1886.

    TO SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHERS:--

    _Ladies and Gentlemen_,--Because we know that to you
    it is, and should be, largely entrusted to advise
    our young people in regard to their reading, because
    you are powerful guardians of "literature for the
    young," we invite you to examine the periodicals we
    publish monthly for children and young folks: =Wide
    Awake=, =The Pansy=, =Our Little Men and Women=, and
    =Babyland=. We will supply you with specimens of these,
    if you will call, or if you will write us. These
    magazines are in the watchful and trained care of their
    original editors, and the same purity, strength, and
    sparkle characterize each number from month to month,
    from year to year. The highest order of fiction, the
    most inspiring, lifting, and refining poetry, the most
    instructive lessons in history and natural science, the
    most entertaining records of travel and adventure, the
    finest literary and biographical articles, appear in
    their pages. _The Congregationalist_ said last week of
    WIDE AWAKE, that it "sets its readers to thinking for
    themselves along many different lines. It has solved
    the problem how to proportion fun and soberness best
    in such a publication better than any of its rivals."
    _Literary Life_, after saying that "WIDE AWAKE is the
    best monthly magazine for young folks published in
    the country," goes on to say of it, "Next to watching
    Nature herself, it is the finest educational work we
    ever have seen for children. A child made happy by such
    a work will possess an intelligence and richness of
    mind beyond the mere range of school lessons." We do
    indeed confidently trust that should you direct your
    classes to our magazines, you will find them a good
    means of preparation of hearts and minds for your own
    important work. You will find the magazines graded
    suitably for the use of infant classes, and upwards.

                 Very truly yours,
                          D. LOTHROP & CO., _Publishers_.

(_From the N. Y. Tribune._)

Among publishers who have carried into their work serious convictions
as to their duty to the public in the matter of supplying good
literature, and who have resolutely resisted all temptations in
the more lucrative direction of that which is simply sensational,
an honorable place may be claimed for D. Lothrop & Co., who have
accomplished in the United States a work second to that of no
publishing-house.

This work was undertaken by D. Lothrop & Co. years ago. With the firm
conviction that ultimate success would attend their efforts, they have
employed the pens of scores of those who have shared their convictions,
including some of the best-known authors at home and abroad, and have
sent out an ever-increasing stream of pure, attractive, and instructive
literature, which has reached every part of the land, and made their
name famous everywhere.

In a general way the public are familiar with the aims of this house,
and have come to regard its imprint upon a book as a guaranty of
excellent in all essential qualities.


    Illustrated catalogue and full catalogue sent free by
    D. LOTHROP & CO., 32 Franklin Street, Boston, Mass.




    =EVERY BOY=  }
        AND      } CAN EARN A GOOD WATCH
    =EVERY GIRL= }       AND CHAIN.

The Waterbury Watch (and Chain) given for =Four New Subscriptions=
to either THE PANSY or OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN; or for =Two New
Subscriptions= and $1.30 cash additional, if sent before June 1st, 1886.


[Illustration: "The Waterbury."]

We make this special offer =only to present subscribers= who send us
=new= subscriptions. One dollar must be paid for each subscription (no
club rates being allowed) and the order must be sent to us direct, not
through an agent. The subscriptions must be secured between April 10th,
1886, and June 1st, 1886. (Premium credits not taken up cannot be used
for this special offer.)

The above amount includes postage. If the watch is to be registered
(and we do not assume responsibility of safe delivery otherwise), 10
cents should be added.

The Waterbury Watch will be found a marvel of accuracy and cheapness.

Accurate, because it will run 24 hours, and =keep time equal to the
better grade of watches=.

Cheap, because it will wear for years, and is offered at a price within
the reach of everybody.

Every watch is perfect before leaving the factory and is tested a few
days in our office before being sent away.

The price of the watch is $3.50.

Remember, the Waterbury Watch =is not a toy, but a real watch=, having
less than one half the number of parts to be found in any other going
watch in the world. It is a stem winder.

Remittances may be made by Money Order, Draft, Bank Check or American
Express Money Order, at our risk.

[Illustration: NEW ENGRAVED CASE (BACK).]


D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY, Publishers, Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston.




SPECIAL PREMIUM OFFERS OF YOUNG FOLKS' LIBRARY.


Any subscriber to one of our magazines sending us =one new subscription
to THE PANSY=, with $1.00 for the same, may select any =three= volumes
of the Young Folks' Library as a premium.

Any subscriber sending us =two new subscriptions= to THE PANSY, with
$2.00 for the same, may select any four volumes of the Young Folks'
Library and one volume from the Household Library as premiums.

See the advertising pages of our magazines for description and titles
of the volumes. The subscription money must be sent direct to us. These
special offers are good only to July 1st.

No previous Premium Credits can be used for these offers.


D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Franklin and Hawley Streets, Boston.




GOOD NEWS FOR THE BOYS.

    A PRINTING-PRESS
    GIVEN AWAY.


[Illustration: HAND-INKING PRESS.]

Having made special arrangements with the manufacturers we are enabled
to offer the celebrated =Excelsior Printing-press Outfits= as premiums
for new subscriptions.

The premiums are =given to present subscribers= to any of our magazines
sending us =new= subscribers to WIDE AWAKE, THE PANSY, OUR LITTLE MEN
AND WOMEN, and BABYLAND, =at full subscription rates=. The following
special inducements are limited to July 15th, 1886.


=OUTFIT A= IS GIVEN FOR NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS AMOUNTING TO $8.50.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $6.00 _and_ $1.20 _cash
additional_.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $4.00 _and_ $2.00 _cash
additional_.

A =SELF-INKING PRESS= will be substituted in any of the above offers
for additional subscriptions amounting to $2.00.

=OUTFIT A= consists of

    No. 1 Press, complete, 2-1/2 x 3-1/2 inches       $3.00
      Assortment of Furniture,                          .10
      Ink Roller, 3-inch, with handle,                  .35
      Can of Black Ink,                                 .20
      Font of Type,                                    1.00
      Leads                                             .05
      Type Case                                         .30
                                                     ------
                                               Price, $5.00

(With a SELF-INKING PRESS, price $1.00 additional.)

=OUTFIT B= IS GIVEN FOR NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS AMOUNTING TO $16.00.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $10.00 _and_ $2.50 _cash
additional_.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $6.00 _and_ $4.50 _cash
additional_.

A =SELF-INKING PRESS= will be substituted in any of the above offers
for additional subscriptions amounting to $5.00.

=OUTFIT B= consists of

    No. 2 Press, complete, 3-1/8 x 5-1/8 in.          $5.00
      Furniture,                                        .30
      Ink Roller, 3-inch, with handle,                  .35
      Can of Black Ink,                                 .20
      Two Fonts of Type,                               2.50
      Extra Feed Table,                                 .30
      Leads, Oil Can,                                   .30
      Can of Cleaning Preparation,                      .30
      Set of Gauge Pins,                                .20
      Type Case                                         .55
                                                     ------
                                              Price, $10.00

(With a SELF-INKING PRESS, price $3.00 additional.) This outfit will do
work from the size of postal card down.

=OUTFIT C= IS GIVEN FOR NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS AMOUNTING TO $30.00.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $20.00 _and_ $5.00 _cash
additional_.

Or, for NEW subscriptions amounting to $12.00 _and_ $10.00 _cash
additional_.

A =SELF-INKING PRESS= will be substituted for additional subscriptions
amounting to $10.00.

=OUTFIT C= consists of

    No. 2-1/2 Press, complete, 4-1/2 x 7-1/2 in.      $8.00
      Furniture,                                        .65
      Ink Roller, 5-inch, with handle,                  .50
      Can of Black Ink,                                 .35
      Four Fonts of Type,                              6.90
      Leads, Bodkin and Tweezers,                       .50
      Two Type Cases,                                  1.10
      Set of Gauge Pins,                                .20
      Composing Stick, Oil Can,                        1.20
      Can of Cleaning Preparation,                      .30
      Extra Feed Table,                                 .30
                                                     ------
                                              Price, $20.00

(With a SELF-INKING PRESS, price $6.00 additional.) This outfit is an
excellent one, as it will do for bill-heads, note-sheets, etc.

[Illustration: SELF-INKING PRESS.]

The mechanical plan of the SELF-INKING PRESS is the same as with the
hand inker except that inking rollers are added to work by the stroke
of a lever. The advantage of a self inker over a hand inker is mainly
in speed, which is increased because both hands are left free, one to
feed paper and one to work lever.

ALL EXCELSIOR PRESSES use ordinary printers' type, as made in any part
of the world. No EXCELSIOR PRESS is _cheaply_ made, but has _steel_
bearings, _best_ of screws, etc. =All presses print within 1/8 inch of
full size of chase as screws are used to lock up the forms.=

Every Excelsior Press is fully warranted in every respect. With every
press we send out is included full printed instructions on every point,
by which any purchaser can manage type-setting, press-work, etc.,
successfully and satisfactorily.

=The Outfits must be sent by Express at receiver's expense.=


D. LOTHROP & CO., Publishers, Franklin and Hawley Sts., Boston.


BACK NUMBERS OF THE PANSY WANTED.

The Publishers desire to obtain a few copies of THE PANSY for November,
1884 and January, 1885. The magazines must be in good condition, clean
and perfect. Seven cents per copy will be paid. Notify the publishers
by postal card if you have either of the numbers desired, and do not
send them unless requested by mail.

    D. LOTHROP & CO., Boston.


FREE!

    THE HOUSEHOLD RECEIPT BOOK for a 2-cent stamp.

    THE HOUSEHOLD GAME BOOK for two 2-cent stamps.

    THE HOUSEHOLD PRIMER for a 2-cent stamp.

Send to D. Lothrop & Co., 32 Franklin St., Boston, for them.


[Illustration]

Did it ever occur to you how much cleaner and nicer it is to wash the
Napkins, Towels, Handkerchiefs, Table Linen, etc., by themselves, with
soap not made of putrid fats or questionable grease?

Do it with Ivory Soap (ninety-nine and forty-four-hundreths per cent.
pure.) made of vegetable oil, and use them confident that they are
clean and not tainted.

If your grocer does not keep the Ivory Soap, send six two-cent stamps,
to pay the postage to Procter & Gamble, Cincinnati, and they will send
you free a large cake of Ivory Soap.

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation errors repaired.

First advertising page, "wokr" changed to "work" (Embroidery Cotton to
work)

Same, "AAMATEUR" changed to "AMATEUR" (AMATEUR PRINTERS.)

Page 205, "unpleasont" changed to "unpleasant" (not an unpleasant task)

Page 205, final line of first stanza indented to match rest of poem (It
cannot matter much)

Page 207, "come" changed to "came" (supper time came)

Page 215, "reaehed" changed to "reached" (reached their destination)

Page 223, "somwhat" changed to "somewhat" (being somewhat curious)

Page 227, "invisble" changed to "invisible" (balloon was invisible)

Page 228, "Inever" changed to "I never" (I never would have)

Page 237, repeated word "to" removed from text. Original read (ought to
to go)

Page 237, word "the" added to text (down the street)

Page 238, "missonaries" changed to "missionaries" (built by the
missionaries)

Page 238 and 239, text uses both "Oroomia" and "Oroomiah" once.

Page 3, advertising, "andthe" changed to "and the" (literature, and the
book)

Page 3, advertising, ".00" added to text to match rest of prices. (By
Hezekiah Butterworth. $1.00.)

Page 12, advertisements, "Pepy's" changed to "Pepys'" (Mr. Pepys'
Valentine)

Page 12, advertisements, "Tunrcoat" changed to "Turncoat" (A
Revolutionary Turncoat)

Page 12, advertisements, "VI" changed to "IV." (IV. Some Italian
Authors)

Page 12, advertisements, "By" changed to "by" (by Anna Katherine Greene)

Page 14, advertisements, "o" changed to "of" (fidelity to facts of)

Page 14, advertisements, "Dr." changed to "DR." to match rest of
type-setting in advertisement (DR. GEO. T. DAY)

Page 14, advertisements, word "By" added to text (By FRANCES A.
HUMPHREY.)

Page 14, advertisements, "HARLA" added to "HARLAN" (By MARION HARLAN.)

Page 14, advertisements, "12m" changed to "12mo." (MARY BLAKE. 12mo.)

Page 15, advertisements, "she" changed to "She" (What She Said)