bought them. The silver rims alone will sell for double the money." "A fig for the silver rims!" cried my wife. "There will be no trouble," said I, "about selling the rims, for they are not worth sixpence. I can see that they 5 are only copper varnished over." "What!" cried my wife; "not silver! the rims not silver!" "No," said I; "no more silver than your saucepan." "And so," she said, "we have parted with the colt and have only got a gross of green spectacles with copper rims 10 and shagreen cases! If I had them, I would throw them into the fire.". "There you are wrong, my dear," said I, "for though they are copper, we will not throw them away, as copper spectacles, you know, are better than nothing." Our family had now made several vain attempts to be fine. 15 "You see, my children," said I, "how little is to be got by trying to impose upon the world. Those that are poor and wish to be thought rich are only hated by those whom 20 they avoid and despised by those they follow." Adapted. Vic ́ar: an English clergyman.-cocking his hat: fastening back the brim. deal: pine wood. — gosling green: yellowish green; the color of pine catkins, called "goslings."— tied his hair: young men at that time wore their hair long and tied back with ribbons. gross twelve dozen. shagreen' a substance usually made from horses' skins; unlike leather, because it has not been tanned. OUR LITTLE BROTHERS OF THE FIELDS CHARLES M. SKINNER CHARLES M. SKINNER is an American editor and writer. This infamous rage for killing! O the gallons, the tuns, of good red blood that are poured over the earth every day the world turns round! The suffering that the 5 men with guns impose: the happy creatures mangled in their play and flight; the crippled that drag themselves to the woods and hills to die, with unheard groaning; the little ones in fur and feathers that perish of cold and hunger, wondering in their baby way why the father and 10 mother that were good to them come back no more! How strange would be the sight of a man feeding a wild animal, carrying water to a wounded deer, setting the broken wing of a bird, covering a chilled, forsaken creature with leaves, or earning from the clear, soft eyes one look of astonished gratitude! O brothers of the 5 tongue that speaks, the hand that works such other good, the brain that thinks so high and kindly for those of your own species, will you not hear and heed the plaint in these wild voices that reach you even at your windows? Will you not have mercy on those harmless ones that, 10 after centuries of persecution, know and think of you only with aversion and terror? Hang up the gun, burn the whip, put down the sling, the bow, the trap, the stone, and bid them live. Let their joyous voices greet the sun again, as in the days before they learned the fear 15 of men. Take their drooping carcasses out of your hat, my lady, and set an example such as a gentle, well-bred woman should give to her ignorant sisters. and friends, not persecutors and enemies. Be ministers Shoot at tarPunish the evil in the human race, 20 But spare, for their sake, yet more your own sake, our little brothers of the fields. From the Atlantic Monthly. tuns: a tun is a measure for liquids; it is equal to four hogsheads. CHEERY PEOPLE1 HELEN HUNT JACKSON MRS. HELEN HUNT JACKSON, who is known to many readers as "H. H.," was born in Massachusetts in 1831. Much of her life was spent in the West, especially in Colorado. She wrote several short stories and some excellent verse. 66 Ramona," a story of Indian life, is her best known 5 book. Mrs. Jackson died in 1885. O the comfort of them! them, - that is sunshine. There is but one thing like It is the fashion to state the comparison the other end foremost, that is, to flatter the cheery people by comparing them to the sun. I think 10 it is the best way of praising the sunshine to say that it is almost as bright and inspiring as the presence of cheery people. That the cheery people are brighter and better even than sunshine is very easily proved; for who has not seen 15 a cheery person make a room and a day bright in spite of the sun's not shining at all, in spite of clouds and rain and cold, all doing their very best to make it dismal? The more you think of it, the more you see how wonderfully alike the two are in their operation on the world. 20 The sun on the fields makes things grow,— fruits and flowers and grains; the cheery person in the house makes 'From Helen Hunt Jackson's "Bits of Talk." Copyright, 1873, by Roberts Brothers. everybody do his best, like singing, and the one who has an ugly, hard job of work to do feel like shouldering it bravely and having it over with. And the music and mirth and work in the house, are they not like the flowers and fruits and grains 5 in the field? makes the one who can sing feel The sun makes everybody glad. Even the animals run and leap, and seem more joyous when it shines out; and no human being can be so crossgrained, or so ill, that he does not brighten up a little when a great broad, warm 10 sunbeam streams over him and plays on his face. It is just so with a cheery person. His simple presence makes even animals happier. Dogs know the difference between him and a surly man. When he pats them on the head and speaks to them, they jump and gambol about him 15 just as they do in the sunshine. And when he comes into the room where people are ill, or out of sorts, or dull and moping, they brighten up, in spite of themselves, just as they do when a sudden sunbeam pours in,-only more so; for we often see people 201 so ill that they do not care whether the sun shines or not, or so cross that they do not even see whether the sun shines or not; but I have never yet seen anybody so cross or so ill that the voice and the face of a cheery person would not make him brighten up a little. 25 25 |