ood large mud-puddle, and oh! didn't I have fun, splashing right
through it!

I drive old Frank whenever I please; and then, when we get home, I feed
him on apples and bread. He is twenty years old, and has no teeth to eat
hay with, and grandpapa says he would starve to death if it were not for
me.

We let him go wherever he likes, and in hot weather he stays on the
barn-floor, out of the reach of the flies, most of the time. He lets me
card him, and he never kicks me. One day last summer, Emma and I got old
Frank upon a haymow, about four feet from the floor, and there he lay
down on his side, and took a nap. Then I brought out a pan of meal and
water, and fed it to him with an iron spoon.

[Illustration]

I have an old pet sheep too. It will run out from the flock any time
when it sees me coming, and follow me to the house. One day I heard a
noise against the kitchen-door, and, when I opened it, my sheep came in,
and followed me right into the dining-room, and would not go out till I
gave it some potatoes.

Major and Velvet Paw are my pet cats, and Peep is my German canary-bird;
and I had a pet chicken, but grandpapa stepped on it one day. He says he
would rather have lost the best cow in the barn than have killed my
chicken. William says he will give me four eggs in the spring, and then,
perhaps, I can have four chickens instead of one.

I have a bear,--a black, fierce-eyed bear, that gnashes his teeth, and
growls, and stands up and shakes his paws at me; but he is not a _real
live bear_. He has to be wound up with a key before he will growl. We
have live bears here in the woods, though: they come right into our
yard, and eat our sheep. We set a trap for one last fall, close to the
house, and a bear was caught in it.

I have a wax doll almost as large as a real baby. I have named it
Gretchen. Cousin Mary brought it to me from Germany. It has flaxen
curls, and six of the prettiest little pearl teeth, and it goes to
sleep, and says papa and mamma, and whines, and cries. I wonder if any
of you little girls have such a beautiful dolly.

My doll, Rosie Deben, is six years old, and almost as large as I am. I
wash her whenever I like, and about once a year Auntie Peeps paints her
face over. I like Rosie for an every-day doll, because I can wash her
hands and face, and undress her, and if she tumbles out of her wagon it
only bumps her head, and bruises her nose. She has tumbled down stairs
ever so many times.

I