H. O.—There are many ways how your steam engine might stop working. You might ask Dicky. He knows one of them. I think it is the way yours stopped.
Noël.—If you think that by filling the garden with sand you can make crabs build their nests there you are not at all sensible.
You have altered your poem about the battle of Waterloo so often, that we cannot read it except where the Duke waves his sword and says some thing we can’t read either. Why did you write it on blotting-paper with purple chalk?—Ed.
(Because you know who sneaked my pencil.—Noël.)
Poetry
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,
And the way he came down was awful, I’m told;
But it’s nothing to the way one of the Editors comes down on me,
If I crumble my bread-and-butter or spill my tea.—Noël.
Curious Facts
If you hold a guinea-pig up by his tail his eyes drop out.
You can’t do half the things yourself that children in books do, making models or soon. I wonder why?—Alice.
If you take a date’s stone out and put in an almond and eat them together, it is prime. I found this out.—Subeditor.
If you put your wet hand into boiling lead it will not hurt you if you draw it out quickly enough. I have never tried this.—Dora.
The Purring Class
(Instructive Article)
If I ever keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody shall learn anything they don’t want to. And sometimes instead of having masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat skins and learn purring.
“Now, my dears,” the old cat will say, “one, two, three—all purr together,” and we shall purr like anything.
She won’t teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching. Children do know some things without being taught.—Alice.
Poetry
(Translated into French by Dora)
Quand j’étais jeune et j’étais fou
J’achetai un violon pour dix-huit sous
Et tous les airs que je jouai
Étaitover the hills and far away.
Another piece of it
Merci jolie vache qui fait
Bon lait pour mon déjeuner
Tous les matins tous les soirs
Mon pain je mange, ton lait je boire.
Recreations
It is a mistake to think that cats are playful. I often try to get a cat to play with me, and she never seems to care about the game, no matter how little it hurts.—H. O.
Making pots and pans with clay is fun, but do not tell the grownups. It is better to surprise them, and then you must say at once how easily it washes off—much easier than ink.—Dicky.
Sam Redfern, or the Bushranger’s Burial
By Dicky
“Well, Annie, I have bad news for you,” said Mr. Ridgway, as he entered the comfortable dining-room of his cabin in the Bush. “Sam Redfern the Bushranger is about this part of the Bush just now. I hope he will not attack us with his gang.”
“I hope not,” responded Annie, a gentle maiden of some sixteen summers.
Just then came a knock at the door of the hut, and a gruff voice asked them to open the door.
“It is Sam Redfern the Bushranger, father,” said the girl.
“The same,” responded the voice, and the next moment the hall door was smashed in, and Sam Redfern sprang in, followed by his gang.
Chapter II
Annie’s Father was at once overpowered, and Annie herself lay bound with cords on the drawing-room sofa. Sam Redfern set a guard round the lonely hut, and all human aid was despaired of. But you never know. Far away in the Bush a different scene was being enacted.
“Must be Injuns,” said a tall man to himself as he pushed his way through the brushwood. It was Jim Carlton, the celebrated detective. “I know them,” he added; “they are Apaches.” Just then ten Indians in full war-paint appeared. Carlton raised his rifle and fired, and slinging their scalps on his arm he hastened towards the humble log hut where resided his affianced bride, Annie Ridgway, sometimes known as the Flower of the Bush.
Chapter III
The moon was low on the horizon, and Sam Redfern was seated at a drinking bout with some of his boon companions.
They had rifled the cellars of the hut, and the rich wines flowed like water in the golden goblets of Mr. Ridgway.
But Annie had made friends with one of the gang, a noble, good-hearted man who had joined Sam Redfern by mistake, and she had told him to go and get the police as quickly as possible.
“Ha! ha!” cried Redfern, “now I am enjoying myself!” He little knew that his doom was near upon him.
Just then Annie gave a piercing scream, and Sam Redfern got up, seizing his revolver.
“Who are you?” he cried, as a man entered.
“I am Jim Carlton, the celebrated detective,” said the new arrival.
Sam Redfern’s revolver dropped from his nerveless fingers, but the next moment he had sprung upon the detective with the well-known activity of the mountain sheep, and Annie shrieked, for she had grown to love the rough Bushranger.
Scholastic
A new slate is horrid till it is washed in milk. I like the green spots on them to draw patterns round. I know a good way to make a slate-pencil squeak, but I won’t put it in because I don’t want to make it common.—Subeditor.
Peppermint is a great help with arithmetic. The boy who was second in the Oxford Local always did it. He gave me two. The examiner said to him, “Are you eating peppermints?” And he said, “No, Sir.” He told me afterwards it was quite true, because he was only sucking one. I’m glad I wasn’t asked. I should never have thought of that, and I could have had to say “Yes.”—Oswald.
The Wreck of the Malabar
By Noël
(Author of “A Dream of Ancient Ancestors.”) He isn’t really—but he put it in to make
