lf on a
sleeper crept up to her.

"You are in a dreadfully dangerous place," he groaned.

"Why?" asked the little rainbow, not a bit scared.

"There is a great monster coming soon. He crushes everything he meets;
he has no heart; his bones are made of iron."

"How funny!" exclaimed the butterfly.

"See how dark the sky is getting; he will soon be here," went on the
worm, solemnly.

"Oh, pshaw! it's only a shower coming up," said the butterfly,
stretching her wings.

"No, it is the monster; don't you feel the ground shake? The storm is
coming, but the monster is coming too. Get into this hole under the
track; I beg you, I entreat you, get into this hole and be saved."

"Nonsense!" laughed the butterfly.

The rail was trembling, and in the distance a strange wild shriek was
heard, a great puff of smoke went rolling up to the sky.

"Quick! quick!" implored the worm. "Do as I do, or you will be killed.
There is no time to lose."

But the only answer he got was a laugh.

The monster was getting nearer and nearer, and the worm, with one more
vain petition to the butterfly to follow him, squirmed into a crevice
under the rail.

On came the monster, its great iron limbs pounding back and forth. A
rattle, a shriek, a puff of smoke: he had come and gone. The worm--where
was he? Limp and dead in his little hole under the rail. And the
butterfly--the poor beautiful butterfly?

Oh, she had simply flown away.

[Illustration: OUR POST-OFFICE BOX.]

NEW YORK CITY.

In a short paper entitled "The Paradise of Insects," in _Young
People_ No. 10, some interesting facts are told of small
sand-flies, called sancudos, which abound on the Upper Amazons and
other swampy localities of South and Central America. Boys will
like to know the origin of their name. Stilts are called _zancos_
in Spanish, and these flies, a species of mosquito, are called
sancudos--more properly spelled zancudos--on account of their very
long, slender legs and disproportionately small bodies, which
remind one of a very small boy on very high stilts. Flies on stilts
is a funny idea, but not more funny than the appearance of these
troublesome little insects.

RODRIGO.

* * * * *

I am a little girl twelve years old, and live at Fort Supply,
Indian Territory. My father is a captain in the Twenty-third
Infantry. We live in huts made of