n the
wagon-house.

[Illustration]

The colt is very cunning; but he is naughty. One day the clothes were
hung out on the line to dry. The colt got in the yard, and tore the
clothes all in pieces with his teeth. He ought to know better.

W. O. C.

[Illustration]

PEEPY'S PET.

THERE was a little girl who was called Peepy; but why she was called so
I do not know: perhaps it was because, when a baby, she used to peep
from behind a curtain or a door, and cry, "Peep-O!"

She was a good little girl; but, when she was five years old, her mother
had to go to Europe for her health, and Peepy was sent to board in the
family of a farmer whose name was Miller.

One day Mr. Miller made her a present of a bright silver quarter of a
dollar. Peepy had been taught to sew by Susan Miller; and so Peepy put
her work-box on a chair in her little room, and sat down and made a
little bag in which to keep the bright silver coin.

Then she took a walk near the grove, and saw two boys who had caught a
robin, and were playing with it. They had tied a string to its legs;
and, when the poor bird tried to fly away, they pulled it back again,
and laughed at its struggles.

[Illustration]

At last the little robin was so tired and frightened, that it lay on the
ground, panting, with its feathers ruffled, and its beak wide open, and
its eyes half closed. It seemed ready to die. Then the rude, cruel boys
pulled the string to make it fly again.

"Please don't be so cruel," said little Peepy. "How can you be so
cruel?" And she ran to the poor bird, and took it up very gently.

"You let our bird alone!" one of the boys cried out. But Peepy still
held it, and was ready to cry when she felt its little heart beating
with fear.

"Do give it to me, please," said Peepy. "I will thank you for it very
much." But the boys laughed at her, and told her roughly to let the bird
alone. "We caught the bird, and the bird is ours," said one of them.

"Will you sell me the bird?" asked Peepy, taking her bright quarter of a
dollar out of its bag, and offering it.

[Illustration]

"Ah! now you talk sensibly," said the larger of the boys. "Yes: we'll
sell it."

So Peepy parted with her money, but kept the precious bird. The boys ran
off, knowing they had done a mean thing, and fearing some man might come
along, and inquire into it.

Peepy took the bird home; and Mrs. Miller told her she had do