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Written for Burke’s Weekly. UTTCLE OLLAPOD’S STORY. Jack Billingslea and the Water-Melon. E ELL, boys and girls, I am afraid } t ou thought I had forgotten my promise, because my story was not forth tst week. The truth is, time to prepare it until for the paper of that 4$ week, and so concluded to give it to you in the present number. When I was a little boy I went to school in the pretty little village of W , in Middle Georgia. The teacher was a fa- mous one, and his school numbered more than a hundred scholars. — There were large boys and girls, seventeen and eighteen years of age, and little ones of five and six, and I can tell you that we had a merry time, after school hours du ring the week, and on Saturdays. One of our favorite plays was Town Ball, which we played sometimes with the boys belonging to the town on the Court House square. That was a famous place. The street in front of the Court House was about one hundred and fifty yards wide, with a dwelling house and a hotel on the opposite side, and the office of the Clerk of the Court a little lower down on the same side. It was a quiet little town, and there was no danger of frightening horses or interfering with pedestrians, and on Saturday afternoon we alwavs had a royal game of Town Ball or this square. Jack Billingslea was one of the largest boys in the school. His father was very wealthy, and lived, I think, in Florida. Jack was a good, easy sort of hoy, not overly smart, but a great favorite, espe cially with the younger boys, whose champion he was on all necessary occa sions. He was passionately fond of Town nail, snd always took a leading part in the game. One sultry Saturday after noon, in the latter part of July, we had a long and sharply contested game on our old ball ground, and when we stopped playing, shortly after sundown, we were nd nearly worn out. Jack’s face was as 1C( 1 ils a blood beet, and ho complained of a head ache, but none of us thought any thing of it until next morning, when we heard that Jack Billingslea was in bed with a raging fever. loor Jack! everybody was sorry for him, and the Doctor was besieged day a fter day to know how his patient was U RIXE ’ S WEE IX LY . getting on. We were told that Jack had typhoid fever, and that he was danger ously ill. For weeks, in the middle of a hot summer, he lay in a close room at the hotel, where he boarded, and his school mates were told that they need not be surprised, any day, to hear that he was dead. Jack's hither had been sent for soon af ter he was digr-ove v ed to be so sick, but there were no .auroaus in # hose days, and letters traveled jwly; so that it was ten days before old Mr. Billingslea received the one which good old Dr. Harden had written him. People traveled then in their own carriages, and it was quite ten days more before the old gentleman’s car- riage, drawn by four horses, rolled into the quiet little town, one evening shortly before sunset. Jack was very ill, but be knew hm father and mother, although he could scarcely speak above a whisper. The.doctor’s had held a consultation that day and decided that all the chances were against him, and the poor old people weie nearly heart-broken, for Jack was their only child. Now, little reader, I am coming to the water-melon. I know you have been wondering what all this had to do with a water-melon. Well, you must know that in those days fevers were treated very differently from what they are now. Doc tors then seemed to think that fresh aii and cold water were certain death to a fever patient, and so the rooms were kept close and hot,and the patient’s thirst was quenched with nothing but a little luke warm water, with a toasted bread-crust soaked in it. You may laugh, but I am telling you the simple truth —ask your fathers and mothers if I am not. Poor Jack Biiiingslea was dying of fever and thirst. The town was full of water-mel ons glorious ones with red meat and black seeds, —and Jack had begged the old Doctor, day after day, for a piece of a water-melon, but of course it was refused. W ell, when his father came the water melon was the first thing he begged for. r I lie doctors had told Jack that he was going to die, and so he said to his father, the morning after he came: “Father, I’m going to die anyhow, so do let me eat a piece of water-melon. I am burning up with thirst, and if I am to die, the melon cannot hurt me.” The old gentleman loved Jack better than everything in the world, and he determined to gratify him. The Doctor protested, but a large, ripe water-melon was procured.— Jack’s eyes watered when it was cut open, and it would have done any one of you boys good to see how ravenously he swallowed spoonful after spoonful of the delicious juice, as his father fed it to him. I believe he would have eaten every bit of it if the old gentleman had not stop ped when he thought Jack had had enough. Well, boys, that water-melon cured Jack Biliinglea. He fell asleep after eating it, the perspiration started from bis hitherto parched skin, and when he woke, four or five hours afterwards, he was pronoun ced out of danger, and soon got well. I believe that case opened some of the doctor's eyes. At all events, cases of fever now-a-days are treat- ed in a more humane manner. — - THE BLx\CK SQUIRREL. h YEHY boy and girl docs not know that the Black Sciurus Caroliniensis , or common Grev Squirrel, which is found all over the United States, cast ot the % iSk Missouri river. It is from nine to ' 9 eleven inches long from the head to the beginning of the tail, and the tail is about an inch longer than the head and body. The Southern and Northern grey squirrel have been considered distinct species, but later naturalists consider them as varieties of one species. The Southern variety is smaller than the Northern, and, according to Audubon, of different habits. They are found of every shade of color from gray to jet black, and are easily tamed, making very pretty pets. 189