out the country in their "Coach and Six."

Of the stories in this juvenile library, the names, at least, of "Giles
Gingerbread," "Little King Pippin," and "Goody Two-Shoes" have been
handed down through various generations. One hundred years ago every
child knew that "Little King Pippin" attained his glorious end by
attention to his books in the beginning of his career; that "Giles
Gingerbread" first learned his alphabet from gingerbread letters, and
later obtained the patronage of a fine gentleman by spelling "apple-pye"
correctly. Thus did his digestion prove of material assistance in mental
gymnastics.

[Illustration: _Illustration of Riddle XIV in "The Puzzling-Cap"_]

But the nursery favorite was undoubtedly "Margery, or Little Goody
Two-Shoes." She was introduced to the reader in her "state of rags and
care," from which she gradually emerged in the chapters entitled, "How
and about Little Margery and her Brother;" "How Little Margery
obtained the name of Goody Two-Shoes;" "How she became a Tutoress" to
the farmers' families in which she taught spelling by a game; and how
they all sang the "Cuz's Chorus" in the intervals between the spelling
lesson and the composition of sentences like this: "I pray God to bless
the whole country, and all our friends and all our enemies." Like the
usual heroine of eighteenth century fiction, she married a title, and as
Lady Jones was the Lady Bountiful of the district. From these tales it
is clear that piety as the chief end of the story-book child has been
succeeded by learning as the desideratum; yet morality is still pushed
into evidence, and the American mother undoubtedly translated the
ethical sign-boards along the progress of the tale into Biblical
admonitions.

All the books were didactic in the extreme. A series of four, called
"The Mother's," "Father's," "Sister's," and "Brother's Gifts," is a good
example of this didactic method of story-telling. "The Father's Gift"
has lessons in spelling preceded by these lines:

"Let me not join with those in Play,
Who fibs and stories tell,
I with my Book will spend the Day,
And not with such Boys dwell.
For one rude Boy will spoil a score
As I have oft been told;
And one bad sheep, in Time, is sure
To injure all the Fold."

"The Mother's Gift" was confined largely to the same instructive field,
but had one or two stories which conformed to the sentiment of the
author of "The Adventures of a P