"Oh brother dear how could you? What, what will Mother say?

You've made a perfect scare-crow of your little dapple gray."

And sister looked so troubled and seemed so grieved and sad

That brother looked a little as though perhaps he had.

At any rate, he found no words his conduct to

defend,

While sister drew the tacks out with the hammer's other end.

Then Mother came-and stood aghast at such a woeful sight.

"Why did you make these holes?" she said. "Your pony is a fright.”

"Yes, yes, I know, but Mother dear, it's not my fault at all,

You see I just drove in the tacks and they were very small;

And sister made these great big holes because she pulled them out."

That brother felt quite free from blame there was no room to doubt.

-RUTH OGDEN.

OPTIMISM

Y old colored mammy used to say:

MY

"Don't borrow trouble.

Every cloud don't rain!"

May it encourage others as it did me.

-ALBERT MORRIS BAGBY.

A PROGRESSIVE YOUNG HEN

VERY progressive young hen

a

Marked all of her eggs with a pen,

Where each one was laid,

Of what it was made,

The how, and the why, and the when.

-RT. REV. C. B. BRENT.

I have not been able to write any little verses, but my big daughter, Louise Homer, Jr., wrote some for me which you may use in your little book. With best wishes for its success,

-LOUISE HOMER.

WITHIN the

TO MOTHER

ITHIN the stillness of the room
A gentle rocker creaks,

Outside across the lifting gloom
The lightning comes in streaks,
And now and then a gentle boom
Of distant thunder speaks.

Within the room a child cries;
The mother, full of fears,

Catches and kisses the sweet eyes;

Her own are full of tears,

As, gazing up the leaden skies,
She thinks of future years.

Singing, she rocks the child to sleep,

But absently she sings;

Her thoughts are on the gentle sweep
Of dripping, rain-soaked things-
The orchard trees-a robin's cheep-
The whirr of passing wings-

TO MOTHER-(Continued)

The suff'rings of her child, the harm-
Then, suddenly, the sky

Breaks and the great sun, red and warm,
Shines out, the clouds slip by.

The sleeping child flings out his arm,
And gives a little sigh.

"ALWAYS IN THE WAY"

Y

My nursie scolds and says I'm bad,
MY My great big brother teases me,

And does his best to make me mad,
And pulls my hair, and squeezes me.

Big sister says: "Oh goodness me!
Why do you always hang around,
Just when I'm busy's I can be!
It bothers me to hear a sound!"

It seems I'm always in the way,
I'm always botherin' somebody;
They say: "Oh run away and play!"
I'm going to run away to sea!

"ALWAYS IN THE WAY”—(Continued)

I'll be a sailor tall and dark,
And sail the ocean black as ink;
Then they'll be awful sorry,—hark!
My mama's callin' me, I think.

My mama's never bad to me;
She always loves to have me there.

I

guess I won't run off to sea;

I

guess I'll

go play by her chair!