tell; so nobody'll know anything about it."

"I must tell General Bradshaw. There he is coming this way now, to take
you to 'the stand.'"

"Well, tell him, and I'll ask him not to tell."

When Marley had "owned up," the General gave him a hearty slap on the
back, calling him a brave lad and a good shot, and promised Mandy never
to tell as long as he lived. When Marley spoke of the antlers, etc., he
was told that he should keep them.

Then they went up to "the stand," and not a boy in the assemblage felt
in a better mood than Marley for applauding the patriotic music, and the
old "Declaration," and Mr. Delaney's ardent oration. At every allusion
to the star-spangled banner, Marley cheered; and when the orator
apostrophized the national bird, perched with one talon an the Alleghany
and the other on the Sierras, dipping his beak now in the Atlantic and
now in the Pacific, preening his feathers with the mighty Lakes as his
mirror, our Marley shouted in a patriotic transport from a stump, and
threw up his cap, and threw it up till it lodged in a tree, and he could
toss it no longer. He shook it down just as the marshal of the day
announced that he would proceed to blow the horn for dinner, to which
everybody, rich and poor, bond and free, was most cordially
invited--ladies to be served first, then the gentlemen, then the colored
people. They would please form by twos, and march to the tables as the
band played "Hail Columbia!"

Then a great bullock's horn, decorated with our blessed colors, was
raised to the marshal's lips, and he blew and blew and blew _such_
blasts; and when he had ended, the multitude--especially the
boys--shouted such shouts as might have leveled the walls of another
Jericho, if horn-blasts and shouts could do such things in these days.

Then the people, in long, fantastic line, wound in and out among the
trees to the tables in the thick shade; and Marley walked beside Mandy
Bradshaw, keeping step to the spirited music, and feeling heroic enough
to charge an army.

BIRDS AND THEIR FAMILIES

BY PROF. W.K. BROOKS.

In this paper we will talk a little about the different ways in which
birds bring up their children, and will say something, too, about the
young birds themselves. There is almost as great a difference in the
domestic habits and customs of birds as in those of human beings.

You have all heard how the ostrich lays its eggs in the sand, where the
sun can shine upon them, and