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10 THE PRESBYTERIA
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For the Children Ij
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A TALK WITH MARS.
Benjamin C. Moomaw.
Ten millions for a talk with Mars?
Expensive in the seeming:
But conversation with the stars
Is something more than dreaming.
Would it be worth the cost to find
Our nearest heavenly neighbors
Bestowing all the wealth of mind
And everlasting labors
On bristling carap| and bloody wars,
And folly withou^ measure?
Or do we wish to witness Mars
A reek of guilty pleasure?
Now, wouldn't we be shocked to see
So fair a planet given
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Might mention under heaven?
To greed, and yet the meaner role
Of lies, and Judas kisses,
And nameless things that fling the soul
To bottomless abyss ?s?
Why, even in our little moon,
Which we have always trusted,
To find a nasty old saloon,
How we would be disgusted!
'Twould be too painful to unveil
Such pitiful conditions,
Or to unfold a sombre tale,
Contemptible ambitions,
Bedraggled robes, unblushing shame,
Iniquity infernal,
A chronicle of blot and blame
Into the world eternal.
Ah, we would never wish to know
Of Mars so ead a story;
So let us rest content, below,
And leave them in their glory.
Ben, Va.
ALL UP AND DOWN THE KITTEN TREE.
i
"There will be no quince jelly this year nor any
other year, ever any more!" said Mother Delightful,
looking at the fruitless boughs of the tree that grew
by the kitchen door. "The old tree is good for nothing
in the world but to help kittens grow. Is not that so,
Sweetheart?"
Sweetheart, daughter of the house and queen of the
farm, laughed a million or so of sunshine-twinkles up
into Mother Delightful's dear face, and made a gentle
dash after the last of six kittens that were clamoring
in a wobbly procession of heads and tulls up and down
the trunk of the tree. Such a crooked tree! Just made
for soft kitten paws to try themselves on. At first the
quince had made an effort to reach the sky and had
grown straight up for a few feet; then, as if that had
been too hard work, it started due South; next, it made
a funny letter S twist back to the North, and last!/
rp.ade a bias attempt to get back to the skyward route.
"Let's call it 'The Kitten Tree' then, Mother Delightful
!"
I
N OF THE SOUTH. November 24, 1909.
"What's all this about a kitten tree?" asked Grandmother
Dearest, peering with lovely wrinkly smiles
over her gold-bowed glasses. She had just come from
the pantry, where she had been stirring up some wonderful
thing she called plum duff. No one knew exactly
what it was, but it was good. No one could make
such deliciousness as grandmother.
"You never knew, did you, Little One, that the old
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years? Why, dear me, all the kittens, striped, spotted
and mixed, have learned to climb and sharpen their
claws on that old quince. We used to say that was
what kept the tree young so long, having young things
all about it. How many quarts of jam and jelly it has
helped us to put down cellar! There now! Do look
at those baby cats. They think the tree and the whole
round earth was made for them."
Fluff and Duff and Rough, Stuff and 'Nough and
Huff were turning sawed-off somersaults and doing
double-and-twisted conniptions up and down the trunk,
chewing one another's spike tails and acting as though
they did not love one another a bit.
"Mother Dee! I am just jealous for The Kitten
Tree," said the tender-hearted Sweetheart. "I want it
to look young and quincy again. If it can't grow
quinces, may I plant morning glories, bushels of them,
down here at the foot? The tree will not care, will it?
Maybe it will like to have flowers on it again. And it
will be just a lovely up-stairs garden for my kittens
to play on. May Abe help me make it, Mother'Dee?"
Mother's love name was such a sweet one that when
Sweetheart spoke it coaxingly, with a iittle miew in
her voice such as the kittens have in their voices when
Abe is coming up from the barn with the big pails of
warm milk, she almost always gets what she wants.
And that is because, between you and me and the Kitten
Tree, she nearly always wants nice things.
So Mother Delightful said "Yes," and Sweetheart
hurried away to the garden to find Abe.
"I want The Kitten Tree upstairs garden made just
like you make mv mother'*;" cniH
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"Will you please be very particular and dig it away
down because we are going to have flowers on the tree
this summer."
Abe had no manner of an idea what Sweetheart
meant with her upstairs and her kitten tree; but he
hurried away, as every one else did, to do what the
child wanted him to. He dug deep all about the
crazy trunk; he brought manure and mixed carefully
with the earth that had not been stirved for years; he
spaded-and hoed and raked and piled the soil up about
the old trunk. And Mnthpr PorfV. i?i?>
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surprised, looked too as if she was really glad to get
back close to the heart of her tree-child again, even
if it did not bloom every spring as it used to do.
Grandfather became interested and gave the little
gardener and friend of baby cats and flowerless quince .
tree a box of smooth, white shells he had picked up
by the seaside. With these Sweetheart made a pretty
border for the garden. Grandmother came and set
out roots of parsley. Mother set out some tiny plants
of nasturtium from her own garden, and inside of all
they scattered the little brown seeds that would send
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