cene.

"Anna-Margaret, what on earth are you doing to the little chicken?"

Anna-Margaret turned her big brown eyes upon her mother. "I'm playin'
Dod and I'm puttin' some wings on des l'll biddie so it can run and fly
like the oo-ver ones, and so they won't run off all the time and leave
it."

"But Anna-Margaret, don't you know you are hurting the little biddie?"

"No-o, Muvver," she said slowly, "but I know what it is to be always
runned off and lef'."

Mother Dear understood what was in her baby's mind as she gathered her
up in her arms. Anna-Margaret dropped the sewing, cuddled the little
biddie close in one arm and clasped her mother's neck with the other.
Mother Dear held her closely.

"I love yo', Muvver Dear," whispered Anna-Margaret.

"I love you, baby dear," was the whispered answer.

Being the baby of the family to Anna-Margaret's mind, just now, was
awfully nice.

CHARITY

H. CORDELIA RAY

I saw a maiden, fairest of the fair,
With every grace bedight beyond compare.
Said I, "What doest thou, pray, tell to me!"
"I see the good in others," answered she.

MY FIRST SCHOOL

W. E. B. DUBOIS

Once upon a time I taught school in the hills of Tennessee, where the
broad dark vale of the Mississippi begins to roll and crumple to greet
the Alleghanies. I was a Fisk student then, and all Fisk men thought
that Tennessee--beyond the Veil--was theirs alone, and in vacation
time they sallied forth in lusty bands to meet the county
school-commissioners. Young and happy, I too went, and I shall not soon
forget that summer.

First, there was a Teachers' Institute at the county-seat; and there
distinguished guests of the superintendent taught the teachers fractions
and spelling and other mysteries,--white teachers in the morning,
Negroes at night. A picnic now and then, and a supper, and the rough
world was softened by laughter and song. I remember how--but I wander.

There came a day when all the teachers left the Institute and began the
hunt for schools. I learn from hearsay (for my mother was mortally
afraid of firearms) that the hunting of ducks and bears and men is
wonderfully interesting, but I am sure that the man who has never hunted
a country school has something to learn of the pleasures of the chase. I
see now the white, hot roads lazily rise and fall and wind before me
under the burning July sun; I feel the deep weariness of heart and limb
as ten, eight, six miles