l strange that
they hated to leave it when their two weeks were up. But they had a new,
strong cage made for the baby bears, and took them home to keep in the
little yard near the barn, where every boy, and nearly every man in town
came to see them, and to hear the story of their capture, and take the
dimensions of the handsome black bear skin. At school certainly nothing
else was talked of that term, and I fear the boys really believed they
were the best hunters in the State. How long their mamma will allow them
to keep their pets they do not know, but they hope it will be as long as
the two bears live and behave.

PETE'S PRINTING PRESS.

"What do you want for Christmas?" asked Mrs. Downs, in a kindly manner.

"I don't know, mother," replied Pete slowly. "Last year it was a
paint-box, bicycle, foils, and you said I could use Dick's foils--and
that you couldn't afford bicycles after the new carpet, so it got down
to a paint-box and that wasn't much of a Christmas."

"That's the comfort in regularly having Christmases; in time you get
what you want," answered his mother.

"That isn't always so. I think it depends on what a fellow wants; and
I've made a strike this year. I'm not going to say thank you for what I
don't want; only I don't exactly know what I do want. It must be
either--either--a--bicycle--or a printing press--or Indian clubs; and if
it is a bicycle, it must be the real kind--wooden ones are not allowed
in processions; and if it is clubs, I shall knock my head off; so it
better be a printing press. It doesn't make any difference to you this
year, does it, as we have not got to buy a new carpet? I have decided;
it shall be a printing press, and I shall get orders enough to pay for
new curtains."

"Not quite so fast, I don't know about the orders, and I do know
printing presses cost, and that Indian clubs are cheap."

"Oh! you can't put me off till another Christmas; it is like Alice in
Wonderland having jam to-morrow. And when to-morrow comes, it isn't
to-morrow. I am going to have it, and you can all club together and buy
it instead of giving me separately, sleeve buttons and scarf pins and
cologne and paper and pocket scissors. A fellow wants real things that
he can do something with. Printing press, now, you remember." And off
rushed Pete as Dick gave a low war-whoop, the signal for an incursion of
boys into the shed.

This shed was filled with relics of former joys, with the debris of
un