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Entered according to Act of Congress, in June, 1867, by J. W. Bitrek & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia.
Vol. I.
Condensed for Burke’s Weekly.
ABOUT LITTLE HARRY TWIGGS.
3? USt rs * Howitt’s delightful
book, The Children's Year ,
there is a pretty story
about little Harry Twiggs,
which I want to tell you
children. Harry was a very
*3} poor little boy, who lived
‘ in England, and was hired
® by Farmer Broadbent to
frighten the birds away from his
field of grain. It was a thirty-acre
field—a monstrous field —the peo
ple all called it “the big field,”
and it was full of ripening grain,
and the birds came from far and
near to peck it. Harry was hired
at three-pence a day, (about six
cents,) to walk round and round
this field, and down the foot road
that went across it from end to
end, to make a noise with a little
wooden clapper, and to shout with
his weak voice, and thus to fright
en away the birds.
This -was dull work. Harry
went every morning at five o’clock
and stayed till eight o’clock at
night, and all day long he saw no
body, unless by chance anybody
went along the foot-road when he
was on it, for otherwise he was so
little, and the grain was so tall,
that he could not have seen them.
All around the field there were
tall hedges, full of roses and honeysuckles,
and other flowers, which made them very
delightful, only poor Harry soon grew
tired of looking at them by himself.
There were, also, here and there among
the hedges, tall oak trees, which cast all
day long a pleasant shade, and Harry
used to think that if he could but lie
down under the shady trees it would be
so pleasant, but then he was afraid of
Farmer Broadbent coming into the field
MACON, G-A., JUNE 6, 1868.
while he was lying there, perhaps asleep,
for the hot sun and weariness often made
him sleepy. So he never dared to indulge
himself, but all day long he went round
and round and up and down that great
field, on which the sun shone without any
shadow, unless it might be a passing
cloud. Sometimes he was so tired he did
not know what to do, and he was always
glad when, by the height of the sun, he
thought it was noon, and then he would
sit down and eat his little dinner of
bread and cheese and buttermilk. Some
times he made a mistake, and ate it an
hour too soon —he never took it an hour
tOO ] ato — an d then the afternoon seemed
so long he thought it never would end;
and he often, besides that, was ready to
cry because he was so hot and tired, and
had nobody to speak to, not even a dog.
One evening, when Harry had got
home, and told them all how solitary and
forlorn he felt in “the big field” all by
himself from morning till night, Dick Tat
tersall —the blacksmith’s son, and Harry’s
playfellow—said: “As sure as he
was alive he would go and keep
him company in the field all the
next day,” which was a holiday ;
and Peggy Ford said, “So would
she if Nancy Tattersall would;”
and Nancy said, “She would if
little Joshua might go;” and every
body said little Joshua might; and
so it was agreed and settled, and
Harry went to bed full of hope.
Next morning, while most little
boys and girls were in bed, up got
little Harry, dressed himself in
his best, swallowed his breakfast,
and with his dinner in an oldish
gray-looking basket, off he set. It
was a grand dinner he had that
day, in honor of his expected
o'ucsts : a little bit of cold mutton,
a large hunch of bread, and some
molasses in an old tea-cup, with a
tea-pot lid that fitted it; and this,
with the bread was to be the grand
second course. Besides this, he
had a can of buttermilk. This
dinner Harry meant to divide
among his friends, it it was better
than what they brought.
The first thing Harry did when he got
into the field was to walk all around it,
clapping as he went, though he never
once thought about the birds, but of the
party he was going to have, and he 'want
ed now to find out the pleasantest place in
all the field. Harry found it, and made
it, all ready for his friends, and now ho
began to wonder why they did not come.
But the time passed on very heavily to
poor Harry, who was ready for them long
No. 49
