e, and looking up into its green branches.

"Poor Peter!" Betty said, "with no Christmas present."

But just then Peter jumped right up into the Christmas tree in the
barn and came down with a little gray mouse in his mouth! The mouse
had been nibbling the corn in the Christmas stockings, but Peter
thought it was his Christmas gift. So the tree was quite perfect, and
all the barn enjoyed it very much indeed.

PATRIOTISM

THE RESCUE OF OLD GLORY

When mother was making plans for a "safe and sane Fourth," Uncle Henry
said, "Why not take the children to the park and have a kite party?
I'll help them make the kites."

The next morning Harry and Anna were busy out on the piazza with Uncle
Henry. By ten o'clock three handsome white kites were drying in a row.
Anna called them the "Big Bear, the Middle-Sized Bear, and the Baby
Bear."

When the kites were dry, the whole family started for the park--Uncle
Henry with the Big Bear and a box of luncheon, Harry with the
Middle-Sized Bear, and Anna, of course, with the Baby Bear. Mother
carried some sewing and grandmother carried the surprise, something
that Uncle Henry had brought home in a flat box. When they reached the
park, they found a French society holding a picnic. A tent was up, the
band was playing, the older boys were shooting at a target, and the
little boys and girls were flying red and blue balloons.

Uncle Henry said, "Ladies first, always," and he soon had the Baby
Bear in the air, and the string in Anna's hands. He drove the bobbin
into the ground, to make sure that the kite would not get away. Harry
insisted upon putting his kite up alone. Then Uncle Henry put up the
Big Bear, and when it was up some distance, he asked grandmother to
open the box. Then he shook out a red-white-and-blue silk American
flag, and the crowd cheered.

Uncle Henry tied the flag to a loop of string, and fastened it to the
Big Bear's string. Then he let it out, hand over hand. Up, up, went
Old Glory, and snapped in the breeze. The higher it went, the farther
out the kite soared, until it hung over the harbor. They were all so
busy watching it that they had not seen that the picnic people below
were pointing up to the flag; but when the band struck up the
Star-Spangled Banner, and the foreign people began to sing, Uncle
Henry noticed one dark-skinned boy who sang with a strange accent and
great energy, and who kept his big, solemn eyes on the flag that
glowed against the