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6 (102) TH1 1
{ Our Boys
THE KEEPSAKE.
Little Grandma in her afternoon sprigged
muslin, very short as to waist and very scant
as to skirt, sat in a high-backed, splint-bottomed
chair, knitting desperately.
She knit to the middle of her needles. Then
she rolled her ball of gray yarn up hard and
stuck the needles into it.
"Mother," she said eagerly to Great-grandmamma,
"now may I make a cat?"
"What?" exclaimed startled Great-grandmamma,
stopping the spinning wheel in her
surprise.
"Out of cloth," explained little Grandma.
"Oh!,' said Great-grandmamma, starting
the wheel again and stepping back and forth,
with the yarn she was spinning to make more
gray stockings.
"For a pen-wiper," went on little Grandma,
above the whirr of the wheel. "May I have a
piece of the best broadcloth for it?"
"Have you knit your stent?" questioned
Great-grandmamma.
"Yes." said little Grandma, hardly able to
keep her ankles-ties still, she was so anxious
to go.
"I've knit six times round the stocking."
That was her "stent" every afternoon before
she could play.
"Then you may," smiled Great-grand
mamma, ana nine uranama jumped excitedly
to her feet, spilling the astonished Mr. Wiggins
unceremoniously out of her lap to the floor,
where he dexterously alighted on his feet, and
danced off in search of Great-uncle.
Great-uncle was writing at the secretary.
Little Grandma waited, with what patience she
could, for him to finish and fold the big blue
sheet and seal it on the back with red wax.
"Oh, will you please draw me a cat?" she
asked then.
He pinched her flushed cheek gently. "All
right 1" he laughed. "now will you have
him 1"
She considered. "Lying down, all stretched
out in the sun, the way Mr. "Wiggins likes to,"
she concluded.
So he drew a cat that way, with little Grandma
hanging happily over his shoulder.
He was old,?oh, twice as old as she!?and
to-morrow he was going away to college. How
she was going to miss this big brother! She
had hemmed his handkerchiefs, and helped on
xne nne smrts. ana Knit a pair of stockings;
but she wanted to give him something all herself.
That was what the pen-wiper was for.
"I guess," she said at last, speaking as steadily
as she was able, "you will miss Mr. Wiggins
when you are gone to college."
"I guess I shall," he answered, sharpening
his goose-quill pen. "I guess, too, I shall miss
somebody besides Mr. Wiggins!"
At that a lurking tear would come out, and,
when she had winked it away, the cat was
done. The drawine in her hnnd nn tlio wind
ing stair she flew to the attic, silent and dim
and fragrant with bundles of herbs hanging
from its rafters,?thoroughwort and pennyroyal
for medicine, sage for the Thanksgiving turkey,
caraway seed for cookies.
She threw open the lid of the great square
chest in the dormor window, tossed aside the
sprigs of cedar scattered in to keep away
moths, and took out the roll of fine broadcloth
left from Great-uncle's new suit that the tailoress
had just made.
'BEBBTTERIAH OF THE 8C
and Girls
11
Dropping on the floor in the light of the dormor
window, under its arch fringed with drying
herbs, she deftly cut-out the picture of the
cat on the paper.
Then she pinned this paper pattern smoothly
on a piece of broadcloth, and cut a cloth cat
by it. Snip, snip, went her sharp scissors,
pointing the black ears, rounding the paws and
the tip of the tail. And there lay a miniature
Mr. Wiggins on her lap! Then she cut out several
more of him.
"Now." she said. "I must make vour whis
kers!" And with white silk from her reticule
she embroidered his whiskers.
She found two gleaming pearl buttons in
her button bag, and sewed his eyes on tight.
Last of all, she securely fastened, underneath,
the unwhiskered and eyeless copies of Mr.
Wiggins to wipe the pen on.
A few minutes later a flying figure precipitated
itself upon Great-uncle. "Here is a Mr.
Wiggins to go to college with you!" cried little
Grandma, putting the pen-wiper in his hand.
He was just as pleased with it as she had
hoped he would be.
"Tt ia ? hpfllltiflll />nt I T cVinll lroon it nlnrnvs
to remember you by. It is a keepsake," he
said. "And Mr. "Wiggins and I will write you
lots of letters," he assured her.
So Great-uncle packed the pen-wiper in his
earpet-bag, and next morning the stagecoach
and its four horses galloped a hundred miles
away with him and Mr. Wiggins to college.
Now Mr. Wiggins is an old, old cat,?more
than sixty years old. His white whiskers are
a bit yellowed with time, and his black coat
not quite so glossy; but his pearl button eyes
are as bright, and he is as useful as ever. And
many a letter does he still help write, for Greatuncle
kept him always, just as he said he
would.?Alice M. Farrington, in Little Folks.
uni< ur uuk ninu mzuanua.
Have you ever wondered why the Baltimore
oriole is so called? It is because of its colors,
black and orange, the colors of the arras of
Lord Baltimore, to whom Maryland first belonged.
In reality the Baltimore oriole is not an
oriole, but a member of th<- starling family. Its
chief resemblance to the oriole, which is a native
of the Old World, is it* colors. It is one
of the most fearless of our American birds, often
building, its nest in the branches of a tree
in the noisiest section of a city, where its
cnecry song is heard above the din and clatter
of the street.
The nest of the Baltimore bird is very interesting
and displays great skill in the making.
In shape it resembles a long purse, and it is
swung hammock fashion from two twigs at the
extremity of a lofty, drooping branch. It is
formed of flax, vegetable fiber, and wool matted
together, then securely sewed in plate with
irregular but very strong stitches. The thread
used for rp win a in n*iial1v 1nn? u-:?
? ? ivug IIUIBC 11(1118,
though, especially if the nest is within close
range of civilization, bits of string, thread, or
silk floss arc used. The mother bird does the
building, while her mate searches for and
brings the material. When completed, the nest
is from six to seven inches long or deep, and
at the bottom there is always to be found a
soft bed of cow hairs or similar material, in
which the eggs are kept snug and warm.
The Baltimore bird contributes his beauty
> u 1 H [February 5, 1918
and cheer to brighten life's pathway, and
should certainly be sure of mercy from us.?
The Chronicle.
WINGED WARRIORS.
The quiet little village of Holzmengen, in
Transylvania, was all in an uproar one bright
summer aiiernoon long ago; ior lis aaxon inhabitants
were fighting for their lives against
terrible odds, as they had fought many a time
before. The whole slope of the hill on the
brow of which it stood was one great crowd
of wild-looking men, with dark, fierce faces,
and white turbans, and strangely-fashioned armor?those
dreaded Turkish soldiers, the memory
of whose fierceness is still preserved in our
saying that any man of savage temper is "a
regular Turk."
And all this time, while the air was rent with
the din of battle, and death was gaping to devour
the village and all within it, a little girl
barely ten years old, with long, fair hair, and
L 1 J 1 ?1- A A 1 1 ' * - "
eyes as uiue aria Drigni as me say overneaa,
was at work in her little garden just behind
the village church as quietly as if no enemy
were within a hundred miles of her. But this
was not so strange as it looked. Little Lizzie
was the daughter of the sexton who had
charge of the church, which, as the largest and
safest building in the place, was always ufeed
as a hospital in time of war; and the work
upon which the little woman was so busy was
the preparing of bandages for the wounded,
who were now being brought in thick and
fast. But in the midst of all this uproar and
agony ana death the sun shone as bright as
ever, and the trees of the tiny garden rustled
in the evening breeze; and around the twelve
neat hives that stood ranged in a row the bees
were humming blithely, as they hovered among
the flowers. And any one who had shut his
ears to the frightful din below might have
thought this spot the most peaceful in the
whole world.
And now Lizzie, catching up a whole armi
a i - -
iiu or Danaagcs, nurriqd away into the church,
where she was soon so busy among the wounded
men that she hardly noticed that the noise
of the battle was growing louder seeming to
roll nearer and nearer every moment. But
suddenly a fearful cry from without made her
look up, and through the nearest window she
saw the Germans crowding wildly into the one
small gate of the churchyard wall, while behind
them the dark, Turkish faces and snowwhite
turbans were eddying like a flood among
the houses. The Turks had taken the village
and were comincr on to flttup.k flip. it.
self! Luckily, it could only be attacked on
one side; for on the other the rock was so steep
and slippery that no man alive could have
scaled it. So the brave village baliff, though
bleeding from several wounds, ranged his men
along the side of the wall that faced the enemy,
and encouraged them to stand firm and
fight it out to the last.
On came the Turks with hoarse yells of triumph,
and in a moment the whole space outside
the churchyard was u sea of grim faces
and Hashing steel. And now the swarming
assailants made a third charge, which brought
them right up to the foot of the wall that sheltered*
all who were left to the defenders; and,
while some thundered upon the gate with axes,
others planted ladders against the wall or
tried to clamber up it on each other's shoulders.
Another moment and all wold have been
over; but just then Lizzie, struck with a' bright
idea (which came to her from an old story she
had heard one winter evening), darted back into
her little garden, seized two of the beehives,
one in each hand, and springing upon the low
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