IF

F

Little Miss Muffet

Had sat on her tuffet

Eating a Christmas pie,
Would Little Jack Horner
Have jumped from his corner
When that big spider came nigh?

If Little Jack Horner

Had had in his corner

A big dish of sweet curds and whey,

Would Little Miss Muffet

Have sat on her tuffet

And found a big plum that day?

-ARTHUR CAPPER.

(Governor of Kansas.)

NEW YORK

EW York is such a restless town,

NEW Its back's so long it can't sit down.

-DR. B. L. GILDERSLEEVE.

I

DISINTERESTED

WISHT my Pa was little
Instead of being big,

Say just about as big as me
So we could play and dig.

Of course there's lots of fellows

That I can go to see,

But think what fun my Pa would have

If he could play with me!

-ALICE HEGAN RICE.

BREAD AND MILK

EVERY morning before we eat,

My mother prays a prayer sweet. With folded hands and low bowed head: "Give us this day our daily bread." But I'd like tarts and ginger cakes, Puffs and pie, like grandma makes. So 'smorning I said my appetite

Must have cake, or 'twouldn't eat a bite. Then mother said: "Fore you get through, You'll find just bread and milk will do."

She always lets me think things out,
But I went to the yard to pout.

What I saw there-Upon my word!
I'm glad I'm a boy,-not a bird.
Redbreast pulled up a slick fish worm,
To feed her child: it ate the squirm.
Bee-bird came flying close to me,
And caught a stinging honey bee.
She pushed it down her young, alive.
She must have thought him a bee hive.

BREAD AND MILK-(Continued)

Old Warbler searched the twigs for slugs,
Rose Grosbeak took potato bugs.
Missus Wren snapped up a spider,

To feed her baby, close beside her.
Little Kingbirds began to squall,

Their mother hurried at their call.

She choked them good, with dusty millers.
Cuckoos ate hairy caterpillars.

Bluebirds had snails, where I could see,
For breakfast, in their apple tree.

Then little Shitepoke made me squeal,
Beside our lake he ate an eel.

When young Screech Owl gulped a whole

mouse,

I started fast for our nice house.

Right over me-for pit-tee sake,
Home flew a hawk, with a big snake!

So 'fore my tummy got awful sick,
I ran and kissed my mother quick.
I acted just as fine as silk,

And asked polite for bread and milk.

-GENE STRATTON-PORTER.

Copyright 1915; by Gene Stratton-Porter.

MARY C.

HERE was a little girl, three years old, with

TH

grey eyes and rather red hair. Her first name was Mary and her middle initial was "C," so her brother Langston, who was five, and her magnificent sister, Eunice, who was seven, used to call her "Mary C." Sometimes they would tease her by singing in shrill voices:

"If Mary C..saw a see-saw,

Where is the see-saw that Mary C. saw?"

On various occasions this little girl had listened approvingly while her mother tried to teach Langston politeness to ladies. One day at a birthday party the children were gathered behind folding doors waiting to see the big cake with candles on it and, as the doors opened, Langston crowded through ahead of the girls. Whereupon Mary C. called out:

"Good-bye, lady!"

"What do you call me 'lady' for?" he asked, much insulted.

She tightened her little mouth and said severely, "Cause 'oo goin' in ahead o' me."

At this Langston stepped back, rather dis