ng away?
Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its gray,
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May.
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of thy children, the boys.

--_Oliver Wendell Holmes._

SUSIE'S PRAYER

It was a half-holiday. The children were gathered on the green and a
right merry time they were having.

"Come, girls and boys," called out Ned Graham, "let's play hunt the
squirrel."

All assented eagerly, and a large circle was formed with Ned Graham
for leader, because he was the largest.

"Come, Susie," said one of the boys, to a little girl who stood on one
side, and seemed to shrink from joining them.

"Oh, never mind _her_!" said Ned, with a little toss of his head,
"she's nobody, anyhow. Her father drinks."

A quick flush crept over the child's pale face as she heard the cruel,
thoughtless words.

She was very sensitive, and the arrow had touched her heart in its
tenderest place.

Her father _was_ a drunkard, she knew, but to be taunted with it
before so many was more than she could bear; and with great sobs
heaving from her bosom, and hot tears filling her eyes, she turned and
ran away from the playground.

Her mother was sitting by the window when she reached home, and the
tearful face of the little girl told that something had happened to
disturb her.

"What is the matter, Susie?" she asked, kindly.

"Oh mother," Susie said, with the tears dropping down her cheeks, as
she hid her face in her mother's lap, "Ned Graham said such a cruel
thing about me," and here the sobs choked her voice so that she could
hardly speak; "He said that I wasn't anybody, and that father drinks."

"My poor little girl," Mrs. Ellet said, very sadly. There were tears
in her eyes, too.

Such taunts as this were nothing new.

"Oh, mother," Susie said, as she lifted her face, wet with tears, from
her mother's lap, "I can't bear to have them say so, and just as if
_I_ had done something wicked. I wish father wouldn't drink! Do you
suppose he'll ever leave it off?"

"I hope so," Mrs. Ellet answered, as she kissed Susie's face where the
tears clung like drops of dew on a rose. "I pray that he may break off
the habit, and I can do nothing but pray, and leave the rest to God."

That night Mr. Ellet came home to supper, as usual. He was a
hard-working man, and a good neighbor. So everybody said, but he had
the ha