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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