chicken is that!
Its wings are so long and its body so fat!”
While the robin remarked, loud enough to be heard:
“Dear me! an exceedingly strange-looking bird!”
“Can you sing?” robin asked, and the chicken said “No;”
But asked in its turn if the robin could crow.
So the bird sought a tree and the chicken a wall,
And each thought the other knew nothing at all.
—_St. Nicholas._
Harriette W. Lothrop, wife of the popular publisher—better known by her pen name of “Margaret Sidney”—has done much in a humorous way to amuse and instruct little folks. She has much quiet humor.
WHY POLLY DOESN’T LOVE CAKE!
BY MARGARET SIDNEY.
They all said “No!”
As they stood in a row,
The poodle, and the parrot, and the little yellow cat,
And they looked very solemn,
This straight, indignant column,
And rolled their eyes, and shook their heads, a-standing on the mat.
Then I took a goodly stick,
Very short and very thick,
And I said, “Dear friends, you really now shall rue it,
For one of you did take
That bit of wedding-cake,
And so I’m going to whip you all. I honestly will do it.”
Then Polly raised her claw!
“I never, never saw
That stuff.
And so it would be folly,”
Said this naughty, naughty Polly,
“To punish me; but Pussy, you can whack her.”
The cat rolled up her eyes
In innocent surprise,
And waved each trembling whisker end.
“A crumb I have not taken,
But Bose ought to be shaken.
And then, perhaps, his thieving, awful ways he’ll mend.”
“I’ll begin right here
With you, Polly, dear,”
And my stick I raised with righteous good intent.
“Oh, dear!” and “Oh, dear!”
The groans that filled my ear.
As over head and heels the frightened column went!
The cat flew out of window,
The dog flew under bed,
And Polly flapped and beat the air,
Then settled on my head;
When underneath her wing,
From feathered corner deep,
A bit of wedding-cake fell down,
That made poor Polly weep.
The cat raced off to cat-land, and was never seen again,
And the dog sneaked out beneath the bed to scud with might and main;
While Polly sits upon her roost, and rolls her eyes in fear,
And when she sees a bit of cake, she always says, “Oh, dear!”
KITTEN TACTICS.
BY ADELAIDE CILLEY WALDRON.
Four little kittens in a heap,
One wide awake and three asleep.
Open-eyes crowded, pushed the rest over,
