There is all the time, my dear boys and girls, a great demand everywhere all through life for people who don’t break easily—people who know how to take hard knocks without going all to pieces. The game of life is sometimes rough, even among those who mean to play fair. It is very trying when we have to deal with people who break easily, and are always getting hurt and spoiling the game with their tears and complaints. It is so much better when we have to deal with people who, like little Pansy, do not break easily. Some of them will laugh off the hardest words without wincing at all. You can jostle them as you will, but they don’t fall down every time you shove them, and they don’t cry every time they are pushed aside. You can’t but like them, they take life so heartily and so sensibly. You don’t have to hold yourself in with them all the time. You can let yourself out freely without being on pins as to the result. Young people of this class make good playmates or good work-fellows, as the case may be.

So, boys and girls, you must learn to rough it a little. Don’t be a china doll, going to smash at every hard knock. If you get hard blows take them cheerily and as easily as you can. Even if some blow comes when you least expect it, and knocks you off your feet for a minute, don’t let it floor you long. Everybody likes the fellow who can get up when he is knocked down and blink the tears away and pitch in again. Learning to get yourself accustomed to a little hard treatment will be good for you. Hard words and hard fortune often make us—if we don’t let them break us. Stand up to your work or play courageously, and when you hear words that hurt, when you are hit hard with the blunders or misdeeds of others, when life goes roughly with you, keep right on in a happy, companionable, courageous, helpful spirit, and let the world know that you don’t break easily.

A HUMBUG.

A boy or girl who is pleasant and agreeable everywhere except at home is a humbug. I know one boy who is a good deal of a humbug, although you would never think so if you were to see him in any place outside of his home. He is good-looking, neat and tidy, and carries himself like a little man. I do not know of a boy who can tip his hat more gracefully to a lady, or who can say, “I beg your pardon,” or “excuse me, please,” more pleasantly than he can. But, for all that, he is a humbug.

I visited his home the other day. I heard his mother speak to him.

“Alexander,” she said.

“Well, what do you want?” he asked in a voice which plainly indicated his displeasure.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Oh, you are always wanting me to do something just when I want to be doing something else,” said Alexander, and this time he was whining.

In departing on his errand Alexander accidentally ran against his little sister in the hall. I expected to hear him say, “I beg your pardon” in the pleasant way that I knew he could say it, but he snapped out instead:

“Oh, get out of the way, can’t you?”

When he returned from the postoffice, Alexander’s mother was out in the yard trimming the flowers. While Alexander was reporting to her she happened to drop her scissors. I expected to see her polite and dutiful son pick them up, as he was close by when the scissors fell; but the boy paid no attention to the scissors. When his mother said, “Please pick up my scissors for me, Alexander,” he said:

“What did you drop ’em for?”

I spent the best part of one whole day at Alexander’s home, and never once during all that day did I hear him speak politely to his mother or sisters, nor did he observe the ordinary rules of courtesy and good behavior in their presence. He was continually grumbling and complaining and finding fault. So I think I have a right to say that this boy is a good deal of a humbug. Any boy is a humbug who is polite and gracious to others and in every way discourteous and disagreeable at home. Don’t you think so, too?

HOW TO BE HANDSOME.

Do you want to be handsome? I’ll tell you how.

First, look well to your health. Eat regularly and simply, and take proper rest, in order to be healthy. Do not crowd the stomach. The stomach can no more work all the time, night and day, than a horse; it must have regular rest. The body must have proper rest also. Do not keep late hours. Go to bed early. If you have work which must be done, it is a good deal better to rise early in the morning and do it than it is to sit up late at night and work.

Secondly, good teeth are essential to good looks. Brush the teeth regularly with a soft brush morning and night, especially at night. Be sure to go to bed at night with clean teeth.

Thirdly, look well to the ventilation of your bedrooms. No one can have a clear skin who breathes bad air. Fresh air is a preventive of a multitude of diseases. Bad air is the cause of a great many premature deaths.

Fourthly, cleanliness of the entire body is of vast importance. Some one has said that “Cleanliness is next to godliness,” and some one else has added, “And soap is a means of grace.” Handsome people not only eat regularly and simply; they not only sleep regularly and look well to proper ventilation; but handsome people will take regular baths.

Fifthly, more than all else, in order to look well you must wake up the mind and soul. When the mind is awake, the dull, sleepy look passes away from the eyes. Keep thinking pleasant and noble thoughts; do not read trashy novels or books; read books which have something good in them. Talk with people who know something. Be often in the company of those who know more than you do. Hear lectures and sermons and profit by them. If we listen and understand and heed, the mind and soul are awakened. So much the better if the spiritual nature is aroused. Sometimes a plain face is really glorified with the love of God and of man which shines through it.

Lastly, keep a strong and vigorous body by taking plenty of wholesome outdoor exercise, and do all the good you can.

Why not begin to grow handsome today?

PATIENCE.

Patience is one of the marks of a high character. It might well be called the habit of closing the mind against disagreeable and annoying conditions. To acquire this habit so effectually as to hide even from one’s self any sense of suffering or offense from contact with such conditions is what the truly cultivated aim at. Life, it is true, is full of trying things, but to let the mind dwell upon them only serves to increase their offense to the feelings or the senses.

There are people, of course, who are incapable of self-concentration, and whose imagination, if left free to gad about, seems always to fix upon and exaggerate every element of disturbance. They live in what is called an elementary stage of moral discipline, and are perpetually fretting about things they cannot help. They are never able to shut down the will against any unpleasantness. They permit merely accidental conditions to exercise a kind of tyrannical sway over them, which, if their minds were once bent to the practice of putting up with things, would cease to present any annoyance whatever.

It is difficult, no doubt, to acquire this habit, but this is what patience means in its highest sense. It is spiritual endurance, and its chief power consists not so much in adding to the number of our joys as in lessening the number of our sufferings. It is, therefore, a mark of power over one’s self and a means of power over others. With patience the outward success or failure of a man is a small thing compared with that success which he has achieved within himself. And that kind of success—the success which enables a man to laugh at failure and rise superior to discouragements and difficulties—that kind of success is a means of help and inspiration to all those about him.

If we consider the works of nature we shall see that nature’s most beneficent operations are the results of patience. Anything which grows must have time, and the best things in the world are generally those things which demand the longest time for their growth and development. The rank and short-lived weed reaches its full development in the shortest possible time, but the oak, which is to stand for centuries, demands the sunshine and the storm of years before its strength is fully developed.

Now, boys and girls, one of the hardest demands which nature makes upon people (especially upon young people, full of strength and energy and ambition) is to wait for the results of growth. No man becomes instantly strong morally; he must grow into strength. However great his ambition and his zeal may be, no man becomes a scholar in a year. It takes time, and lots of it. No man reaches at a single bound the full development of his whole nature. He grows into strength. A good soldier cannot be made without war, nor can a skillful seaman be made on land.

So in the race of life we must fight hard for all we get and be patient. Whatever else may be true, or may not be true, only patient and continued efforts—not hasty efforts—lead to success.

Before me lies a block of wood. It is full of knots. It seems to me I can never split it. But I bravely make the attempt. The first blow makes little impression. The axe springs back with a bound. Again and again I strike. Then a tiny crack appears. A few more licks—and the block yields. I have succeeded. Can you tell me which blow did the work? Was it not the first blow and the last and all between? You have tried something and failed. Try again. If you fail, try once more. And on and on, keep trying until you win the victory.

BEAUTIFUL EYES.

GOING WITH THE CROWD.

“But all the girls went, mother. I didn’t like to be the only one left out. Besides, when I said I wouldn’t go they all laughed at me and said that I was a coward.”

It was Wednesday morning, before school time, and Anna was dreading to go back to school—dreading to meet her teacher. The day before a circus had been in town. At recess, while the children were on the playground, they heard the noise of the band, and one of the girls said:

“Let’s go and see the parade.”

“All right,” said Anna. “I’ll go and ask the teacher if we may.”

“No; don’t ask her—she might say no. We can get back before the bell rings, and she will never know that we left the grounds.”

Anna and one or two other girls held back. They all knew that it was against the rules to go off the playground at recess without permission.

“Oh, come on! Come on!” insisted one of the girls. “You’re afraid; you’re afraid! Come on! Don’t be such a coward; all the rest are going.”

And so Anna went.

When the girls saw the parade pass one point they wanted to see it once more, and away they went through the cross street to get to another corner ahead of the procession. School was forgotten; and when they did remember, recess time was long past and it was too late to go back.

The next morning, as Anna stood in the kitchen talking it over with her mother, her little heart was very heavy. She knew she had done wrong; she dreaded to go to school; and she was very unhappy.

“Perhaps,” said her mother, “if you had been brave about not going, the other girls would have stayed on the school grounds too. Or, if you had asked the teacher, I think she would have let you all go. But whether she did or not, it is never safe to do a thing just because ‘all the rest do it.’ Going with the crowd is not a good plan unless you are sure that the crowd is going in the right direction. The only wise thing for you to do is to be sure you are right, and then stick to it and never mind what the crowd does.”

“I didn’t mean to do wrong,” said Anna, as the tears started in her eyes.

“I know that, my dear,” said her mother, “but you were more afraid of being teased than you were of doing wrong. I hope you will remember from this day forward that the brave girl is not the girl who dares to do wrong, but the brave girl is the one who does what she knows to be right, in spite of the taunts and jeers of her playmates.”

“What shall I tell my teacher?” asked Anna in a low voice, as she dropped her head.

“Oh,” said her mother, kissing her, “you go right straight to your teacher and tell her that you have done wrong, and that you are sorry for it. Ask her to let you say so to the whole school. Be sure to beg her pardon, and promise not to do so again.”

Little Anna did as her mother told her. That afternoon, when she came back from school, she ran into her mother’s arms and said:

“Mother, I’m so happy. Teacher forgave me, and I mean to be good.”

And the smile on Anna’s face spoke plainly of a happy heart.

MARY AND HER DOLLS.

Was there ever a time when the first doll was born? Was there ever a time when little boys and girls, especially little girls, did not love dolls and did not have something of that nature to play with? It would appear that dolls, or playthings somewhat like unto dolls, are as old as babies themselves—that is to say, boys and girls, that ever since there have been little children in the world there have been little things for them to play with. And I never saw a sane person in my life who regrets that it is so. It is not only amusing, it is inspiring to see the little children making merry with their dolls and their toy animals and their little express wagons and their wooden guns and their toy steam engines and their whistles and their balloons and their brownies and their jumping-jacks and their hobby-horses and a hundred and one other things.

Mary had put away her dolls for the night and was cleaning the doll house when papa came in.

“How many doll babies have you now, Mary?” he asked.

“I have five dolls now, papa,” said Mary, “but only one is a baby—that is little Flossie. Robbie and Nell are three years old now; Mattie is two and Jerusha is one year old. Flossie is now the only little baby.”

The Rev. Dr. Smithson smiled.

“Well,” he said after a time, “five dolls make a big family, I think.”

“I don’t,” said Mary quickly. “Rolla Mays has thirteen girls and two boys in her doll family, and I haven’t but five in all!”

“I shouldn’t think,” said Dr. Smithson, “that Rolla would know what to do with so many.”

“Why, papa, of course she does!”

“Mary,” said Dr. Smithson, looking thoughtfully at his little daughter, “I have a little girl in my Sunday school class who hasn’t a single doll. I thought you might like to give her one of yours. You could spare one—couldn’t you?”

“Oh, papa, I couldn’t—not a one,” exclaimed Mary.

“Not one—when this poor little girl hasn’t any?”

“Oh, papa, I love my dolls so—how can I give them away?”

“You’d have four left—wouldn’t that be enough?”

Mary thought a long while before speaking. She looked distressed.

“Papa,” she said at last, “Mrs. Grant was over here the other day, and she said that she wished you and mamma would give me to her because she didn’t have any little girl of her own. You’ve got five children yourself, papa—but would you give any of ’em away just because you would have four left?”

Dr. Smithson took his little daughter in his arms and kissed her.

“No, dear,” he said; “papa wouldn’t give any one of his children away. You may keep all of your dollies, and we’ll think of some other way to help poor little Hattie.”

The next morning Mary said:

“Papa, I have thought it all out for Hattie. You know I have been saving up a little money to buy me a little iron bank—but I can wait for that. I have saved up fifty cents—don’t you think that will be enough to buy a nice little dolly for Hattie, and let me keep my babies?”

Dr. Smithson knew that Mary had long been planning for the bank. So he asked:

“Are you quite sure that you want to spend your money in this way?”

“Yes, papa, I’m very sure,” said Mary with a smile, though there was a hint of sadness in her eyes.

Dr. Smithson and Mary bought Hattie a pretty doll. Hattie was overjoyed when she saw it. Mary went back home, glad that her papa had understood how she loved her dolls, and glad to find that not one of her beloved children was missing.

JAKY TOLBERT’S PLAYMATES.

“Well, Johnnie, where are you going this morning?” asked Mrs. Jones as her little boy started towards the gate.

“I’m goin’ over to Jaky’s, mamma; you know I must go over to Jaky’s every day.”

“What do you find at Jaky’s to make you so anxious to go over there every day almost before you are out of bed good?”

“Oh, mamma, Jaky has the nicest playmates over to his house you ’most ever saw.”

“Who else goes over to Jaky’s besides you?” asked Mrs. Jones.

“Jaky don’t have no reg’lar visitor but me,” said Johnnie proudly. “Me an’ Jaky is the whole thing.”

“Well, you are saying a good deal for yourself when you say that Jaky has the nicest playmates in the world—don’t you think so?”

“I didn’t mean me,” explained Johnnie. “Jaky’s playmates ain’t folks at all. Jaky’s playmates is animals—just animals, but I do believe that they have got as much sense as some folks I know.”

“What kind of animals?” asked Mrs. Jones, becoming interested.

Then Johnnie went on to explain. He said:

“Jaky’s got chickens and dogs and cats and birds. He’s got names for all of ’em, and they all know their names and they just run to Jaky when he calls them. The chickens and birds, too, will just walk right up and eat out of Jaky’s hand. And his trained dogs and cats are just the funniest things I ever saw. His little dog, Trip, can carry a gun and obey the commands, “Carry arms!” “Present arms!” “Parade rest!” just like a little soldier. One time at a fair he saw trained dogs and horses, elephants, and even lions. Then he decided that he would train some animals himself. And, mamma, he has done well. Why, he’s got a cat that can spell some words. Jaky printed some letters of the alphabet on separate cards, and he’s got a cat that will pick out the right ones every time. One of his little dogs can play the fiddle. It may seem strange, but he certainly can do it. He can hold the fiddle, and draw the bow across it just the right way, and he can play a little tune. Jaky calls it a dog tune, and I think he ought to know.

“You just ought to see Jaky’s chickens—he’s got six of ’em. He calls them and they all come running. Then he holds out his arm, and calls them by name, and they will jump up on his little arm, one after the other, and will sit there until Jaky tells them to jump down. And Jaky is so kind to his two birds that they won’t fly away when he lets them out of their cages for a little while. He can take them up in his arms and pat them gently, and then he puts them down, and they will lie still right by Jaky until Jaky calls them by name and tells them to go into the house—that is, I mean, into their cages.

“By the way, mama, I forgot to tell you. Jaky is getting up an animal show, and he says that I am to be his manager. He’s going to print the cards to-day. He’s going to call his circus, “JAKY TOLBERT’S GREAT ANIMAL SHOW—THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH,” and he’s going to make me the manager of his circus. Won’t that be fine? You’ll come and see it—won’t you? We’re going to charge only one cent for you to come in. Oh, it’s going to be great, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

“To be sure, I’ll come,” said Mrs. Jones. “Tell Jaky I’m glad to hear about how much he loves the dumb animals—every manly boy ought to love and protect them.”

“I tell you,” said Johnnie, as he hurried out of the gate, “Jaky will fight anybody who hallooes at one of his pets or mistreats one in the least. He’s just as kind to them as he can be. Don’t you forget the show. It’ll come off next week.”

A VALENTINE PARTY.

It was one week from St. Valentine’s Day, and the Berry children had already provided a number of the tokens, comic and otherwise, which they meant to send to their friends. Jack produced a grotesque and awfully exaggerated caricature of a withered, stoop-shouldered old woman, with some cruel lines of doggerel printed beneath it.

“I’m going to send this to old Mrs. Gray,” said Jack, as he exhibited the comic picture.

Nearly all the children laughed, and said that the picture and the words beneath it would just suit the old woman. Mrs. Gray was an old and poverty-stricken widow woman, and many of the children of the little village took delight in playing tricks on her on Hallowe’en and Valentine nights. In this way, the children, especially the boys, had made her life so miserable that the old woman often said that she hated even the sight of a boy. In the midst of the merriment over the proposed venture of Jack Berry, it was Lillie Berry who spoke up, saying,——

“Jack, I tell you what I think. I think we ought to give Mrs. Gray a genuine surprise next week. She has had so many ups and downs in this life, I really believe that we can give her a little pleasure if we give her a true—true surprise. Of course, all the boys and girls will be invited to join in, but it is not going to be like a regular party, but something like the ‘surprise’ parties or donation parties that we sometimes give the preacher; we’ll just put the things on the doorstep and run, the way we do with valentines, you know. What do you say to that, Jack? And what do the rest of you think?”

Very quickly the Berry children agreed with what Lillie had said, and immediately they set about planning for the valentine party.

The night of February fourteenth was clear, cold and moonless. Across the fields in the darkness, a throng of merry young children, with a wagon or two (little goat wagons) piled high with baskets and bundles and wood, slipped silently toward the little house where old Mrs. Gray sat shivering over her scanty fire. A sudden knock at the door aroused Mrs. Gray from her musing. She hobbled painfully to the door. Opening it, she saw by the light of the tallow candle a basket of rosy apples and another of potatoes. Nothing else was in sight.

A second knock followed almost as soon as the door had closed on the two baskets which were hurriedly drawn inside. This time a can of kerosene oil held a lonely vigil on the doorstep.

“I haven’t had a drop in my lamp for two weeks,” Jack heard the old lady say, as she peered out eagerly into the darkness before closing the door.

As she was busy filling her lamp, she was interrupted by a third knock, which resulted in a basket filled with groceries in parcels in all shapes and sizes. Great tears stood in Mrs. Gray’s eyes, and a great lump arose in her throat.

At last knock number four revealed the real Saint Valentine—a group of laughing boys and girls, every one of whom carried an armful either of pine or oak wood for the stove.

“Where shall we put it?” asked Jack Berry, as eager now to help as he had been the week before to tease. Mrs. Gray was rubbing her eyes, and wondering if she could possibly be awake and in her right mind.

“Wish you many happy returns of Valentine’s Day!” said Lillie Berry, as she slipped into the withered hand a small purse containing the valentine money of the boys and girls; and before the bewildered woman could say more than a fervent “God bless you,” her guests had melted away in the darkness, and she was left to weep tears of thankfulness among her new possessions.

“NO MONEY DOWN.”

Boys and girls, I suppose you are quite familiar with what is known as buying things on the instalment plan. You have seen people in your own neighborhood—perhaps in your own homes—buy things that way. Chairs, tables, bed-steads, rugs, pictures, things for the kitchen and things to wear, and many other things are bought that way. Most people think they are getting a great bargain when they are able to buy things by paying a small amount in cash as the first payment—say fifty-cents or a dollar—and then pay the balance in small weekly or monthly payments. And especially do some of our mothers and fathers think that they are getting a great bargain, if they are able to buy things they want for “no money down” and so much a week. In such matters, my dear boys and girls, your parents are making a terrible mistake and are setting you a wrong example. They lose sight of the fact, when they fall into the habit of buying anything and everything on the instalment plan or on the “no money down” plan, that a day of reckoning is sure to come; that the time comes when they must pay for everything that they have been led into buying. Thoughtful people—wise people—prefer to pay “money down” when they buy anything; and this habit of paying as they go helps them in at least two ways. First, it saves money in their pockets, and, secondly, it keeps them from running in debt.

Children, these men who come to your homes with great packs on their backs always charge you double for whatever they may sell you on the “no money down” plan—no matter what it is! That is why they are willing to make the terms so “easy,” as they say. In the end they profit by their schemes, and nobody else does profit by their schemes except these peddlers. You ought to avoid them as you would a wild beast. You do not know now, boys and girls, what a terrible thing debt is. I honestly hope that you may never know, and if you will take the advice of older and wiser persons I am sure you will always be free from the bondage of debt.

Not long ago, I saw two women standing at the window of one of these “no money down” or “hand-me-down” stores. One said to the other—

“I just believe I’ll get me a new cloak this winter. My cloak didn’t cost but three dollars, and it is so old and shabby that I am ashamed to wear it in the street. Look at that beauty over there in the corner. Only ten dollars and ‘no money down’.”

“Yes;” said her companion, “but I guess the money will have to come down sometime.”

“Oh, of course; but, you know, I won’t have to pay it all at once. I could probably get it for fifty cents a week.”

“Well, why don’t you just save the fifty cents a week until you have enough to pay ‘cash down’ for the cloak, and in that way you would save, I am sure, three or four dollars; because you can buy that same cloak for six dollars or seven dollars in cash.”

“Oh,” said the woman, “I’d never save it as I would if I had the cloak and knew that I just had to pay for it.”

“But, Delia, the cloak would not really be yours until you had paid for it, and I would feel kind of cheap wearing a cloak that didn’t belong to me. If I were you I would stick to the old cloak until I could pay the money down for a new one. That’s what I would do.”

And that is exactly what anybody should do who wants a new cloak. It is what people should do, no matter what they want. I know a boy fifteen or sixteen years old who had the courage and the manliness and the honesty to wear a very shabby old overcoat all of last winter rather than buy one on the “no money down” plan. It is his plan always to “pay as he goes,” and be debtor to no one.

I heard the other day of a young fellow who goes two or three blocks out of his way to avoid passing certain stores because he owes the proprietors of those stores money that he cannot pay. That boy, I know, is miserable night and day. Mr. Longfellow, in his “The Village Blacksmith,” tells us that the honest old blacksmith could look “the whole world in the face,” because he did not owe anybody anything—he was out of debt. And boys and girls, if you are level-headed, you will fight shy of the “no money down” plan. By choosing the “money down” plan, you will save your self-respect and your good name.

TOMMY’S BABY BROTHER.

For several months Deacon Tadpole’s little son, Tommy, had made constant and repeated reference to the fact that he had no little baby brother or sister to play with. One day, when he was feeling unusually sad over his misfortune, he said to his father,——

“Papa, I ain’t got no little baby brother to play with—you might at least buy me a little pony.”

“Papa can’t buy a pony, son;” said the deacon. “A pony costs too much. I thought you wanted a little brother or sister.”

“I do,” said Tommy, “but if I can’t get what I want I’m willing to take what I can get.”

“But, you would rather have a little brother than a pony, wouldn’t you?” asked Mr. Tadpole.

Tommy thought awhile and then said he thought he would rather have a little baby brother than to have a pony.

“You see,” he said, “it costs so much to keep a pony, and we would have to build a stable for him, wouldn’t we, papa?”

“Yes,” answered his father, “and we haven’t got any room in the backyard for a stable.”

“And we’d have to buy hay, too,” said the child.

“Yes,” said his father.

“Well, I’d rather have the little brother.”

So the matter was left in abeyance until a month ago, when little Tommy was told one morning that a little brother had come to him.

He was delighted. He danced around in the hall and made such a racket on the stairs that the nurse threatened to have him sent away. When he was permitted to see the baby, Tommy went into ecstasies. He wanted to kiss the baby, and cried because they wouldn’t let him hold it in his arms.

But Tommy’s enthusiasm for the new baby began to wear off in about a week’s time. It was always, “Sh-sh! Sh-sh! You’ll wake the baby,” or “Tommy, you must be more quiet!” or “You can’t come in this room now!”

In fact, the little baby brother seemed to be interfering with little Tommy’s fun to such an extent that he decided to go to his father and see if some new arrangement could not be made. Tommy found his father in the library. He ran to Deacon Tadpole and climbed upon his knee, and said:

“Papa, I don’t believe I want my little brother any more. I can’t have any fun with him. I’ll tell you what let’s do. Let’s trade him for a pony.”

“Oh, we couldn’t do that,” said the deacon.

Tommy was silent for a time. Then he said:

“Well, I don’t suppose we could find anybody that would want to trade a pony for him, but don’t you think you could trade him for a goat?”

KEEPING SCHOOL.

Every boy and girl in America ought to go to school. The public school is one of the best institutions connected with the life of our nation. But did you ever hear of a little girl who went to school to herself? I have, and I want to tell you about it.

We will call her Tootsie.

There was no school-house, and no teachers; nothing only just little Tootsie; not even her dolls; just simply Tootsie sitting all alone on the couch near the window. That was all there was to this little school, so far as anybody could see.

But Tootsie said she had a large school, with some sixty pupils. Sometimes she would say that her scholars had been naughty and that they would have to stay in at recess; and then again she would say that they had been promoted to a higher grade; she often talked to her pupils as if they were real live people, telling them how they should stand and how they should sit and giving them permission to be excused, and so on. So you see it seemed in Tootsie’s mind very much more like a real school than it could to us.

Every morning, when Tootsie’s sister would start for school, Tootsie would watch her until she was out of sight, and then she would go and sit down on the couch. Not having a true-true school book, she would take her Christmas story books. At first she would only look at the pictures and try to think what the story about them must be. Then she would ask mamma or grandma, or whoever happened to be nearest, what the words of the picture-story were. She would then say the words of the story over to herself and look at the picture. Next day she would read over the words of the same story as far as she could remember them, and when she came to a word that she did not know, up she would jump and go and ask some one what it was. When she had learned a story herself, she would then talk to her sixty imaginary scholars about it, showing them the picture and explaining the story to them just as though the children were all there before her in her little school room.

In this way Tootsie went through one after another of her story books, picking out the stories that had pleasing pictures.

But the nice thing of it all was that Tootsie was really learning to read, and she did get so that she read real well; for she knew just what she was reading about, and often, when she would find a story that was funny, she would laugh right out even if she was at school, and then she would find mama or grandma and read the funny part to them.

Maybe one reason why Tootsie learned so fast was because her school was just like play to her and not like work. Of course, it is easier to play than it is to work. But could you think of any better thing to play than to play keeping school? Why not try it? It helped Tootsie wonderfully, and I believe it would help many other boys and girls. What do you think about it?

THE SCHOOL OF THE STREET.

Little Joe, ten years old, had followed his business as a newsboy and bootblack in Smutville for three or four years, and, of course, had turned out to be a first-class little citizen of the street. He could curse and swear, and drink and smoke, just the same as any old hardened sinner.

One day, after Joe had finished one of his daily fights with some other small boy, a kind-hearted gentleman stepped up to him and said,——

“My little man, do you go to school?”

“Nope,” said Joe.

“Do you go to Sunday-school?”

“Nope.”

“Well,” said the gentleman, “what do you expect to do when you are grown?”

“I ain’t going to wait till I’m grown—I’m going to be a jockey; that’s what I’m going to be.”

“How would you like to be bank cashier or president of a great bank? Wouldn’t you like that better?”

“Yep,” said the boy, “but a poor boy can’t get no job like that—now you know he couldn’t.”

“Oh, yes; he could if he were to prepare himself for it. But a poor boy, and no other boy, will ever be a great business man if he is going to live forever in the street—cursing and swearing and fighting and, it may be, stealing, and having no higher ambition than to be a jockey.”

“Are you a parson?” asked the boy, becoming interested.

“No, but I am interested in little boys. I am the secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association and we have a boys’ department. I want you to join it. I have found out about your habits and your surroundings; I was told of the death of your mother and father; and I made up my mind to come and ask you to come over to the Young Men’s Christian Association and live with us. You may continue to sell your papers and black boots, but, you see, living with us, you can go to school at night, and some day you will have a good education—and you might be a bank cashier.”

Little Joe took this good man’s advice and went to live in the Y. M. C. A. building. He did not turn out to be a bank cashier or president, but what was better, Joe turned out to be a General Secretary of one of the largest Y. M. C. A.’s among the colored people of this country, and in that way has been instrumental in saving a great many other boys from the gutter.

But Joe would never have amounted to anything if he had not been taken away from the wicked influences of the street, and placed on the road to higher things. The worst school in this world that any boy can go to is the school of the street. The school of the street turns out the most impure, the most dishonest and the most illiterate boys, and those boys and girls who ever rise to be anything or anybody in the world are the ones who leave the influences of the street in due time, as Little Joe did. The street offers most of its work and most of its attractions at night, as many boys can tell. The life of the street leads to no career that is worth following. The good careers are made by those whom the street has not had a chance to spoil, or by those who are taken out of the streets before they become hopeless cases.

There is no greater error than the common notion that it is a good thing to let a boy run the streets and become “hard” and “tough” and “have his wits sharpened” and make “a little man” of himself, as some foolish people say. A boy learns more downright mischief in one night in the street than he can unlearn in the home in six months. And so, what will the teaching of the home, the public school and the Sunday-school amount to, if we are going to give our boys in their young and tender years the freedom of the streets? If now and then a street boy—that is to say, a boy hardened in the ways of the street—does get a good place, in most cases he will lose it and fall back to the old, free life of the gutter. The boys who succeed are the boys who get away from, or who are taken away from, the influences of the street and who are surrounded by better and more wholesome influences. Those who remain under the influences of the street become in the course of time members of the great army of beggars, tramps and criminals. It is a great pity that there should be so many stories going the rounds which tell about newsboys and messenger boys and so on rising to be bank clerks and telegraph-operators and so forth. On the whole, these stories are misleading, and for the reason that they seem to give the impression to many innocent boys and to many thoughtless parents that the surest way to give a boy a good start in life is to send him out into the streets to “rough it” and fight his way to the front over beer bottles, games of chance, the race-track, and the pool room, to the accompaniment of vulgar jokes, profane swearing and evil associates. I repeat: The school of the street is the worst school in the world, and the sooner boys get out of it the better it will be for them.

THE FOX HUNT.

Uncle Hambright used to pride himself upon his ability to invent amusing games for the children. Sometimes he found it hard to think of anything new, but the demands of the children were so insistent and his desire to please them always was so intense that it often happened that Uncle Hambright could almost make a way out of no way.

Dinner-time was fast approaching. All the morning, the half-dozen little children, who were spending the day with Uncle Hambright at the Sunday-school picnic, had been playing every conceivable sort of game and had been enjoying every imaginable kind of story told in Uncle Ham’s inimitable way,—but still the children were not satisfied. “Just one more story,” or “Just one more game,” or “Give us your best game now for the last before dinner,”—the children clamored one after another.

“Very well,” said Uncle Ham. “You all wait until I come back, and then we’ll play fox-hunting.”

Uncle Ham went and told his sister and her husband, the parents of the little children, to take the dinner-baskets far into the woods to the place which they had already agreed upon as the spot where the dinner-table should be spread. Coming back to the children, Uncle Ham said,——

“Now, we are ready. Come close and listen while I explain.”