In the street he takes delight,--
In the street from morn till night:
Don't I tell the story right,
Rowdy-dowdy, noisy sprite?

Rowdy-dowdy's full of fun;
Never walks if he can run;
Never likes the setting sun:
That stops Rowdy-dowdy's fun.

[Illustration]

He is full of prankish ways;
Never still one moment stays;
Boys are fond of boyish plays:
These are Dowdy's rowdy days.

Out at elbows, out at toes,
Out at knees, the urchin goes:
Still he laughs, and still he grows
Rowdier, dowdier, I suppose.

Rowdy-dowdy, don't you see,
Full of noisy, boys-y glee,
Is as sweet as he can be,
For the sprite belongs to me!

He is mine to have and hold,
Worth his weight in solid gold:
Ah! I've not the heart to scold
Rowdy-dowdy, brave and bold!

JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

[Illustration]

THE OBEDIENT CHICKENS.

WHEN I was a little girl, I had a nice great Shanghai hen given to me.
She soon laid a nest full of eggs; and then I let her sit on them, till,
to my great joy, she brought out a beautiful brood of chickens.

They were big fellows even at first, and had longer legs and fewer
feathers than the other little yellow roly-poly broods that lived in our
barn-yard. But, although I could see that they were not quite so pretty
as the others, I made great pets of them.

They were a lively, stirring family, and used to go roving all over the
farm; but never was there a better behaved, or more thoroughly trained
set of children. If a hawk, or even a big robin, went sailing over head,
how quickly they scampered, and hid themselves at their mother's note of
warning! and how meekly they all trotted roost-ward at the first sound
of her brooding-call! I wish all little folks were as ready to go to bed
at the right time.

One day when the chickens were five or six weeks' old, I saw them all
following their mother into an old shed near the house. She led them up
into one corner, and then, after talking to them for a few minutes in
the hen language, went out and left them all huddled together.

She was gone for nearly an hour; and never once did they stir away from
the place where she left them. Then she came back, and said just as
plain as your mother could say it, only in another w