ading class. To-day, a
nice old gentleman, by the name of Mr. William Wood, visited our school.
He is Mrs. Nat Gorham's uncle, and Wood Street is named for him. He had
a beautiful pear in his hand and said he would give it to the boy or
girl who could spell "virgaloo," for that was the name of the pear. I
spelt it that way, but it was not right. A little boy, named William
Schley, spelt it right and he got the pear. I wish I had, but I can't
even remember now how he spelt it. If the pear was as hard as the name I
don't believe any one would want it, but I don't see how they happened
to give such a hard name to such a nice pear. Grandfather says perhaps
Mr. Wood will bring in a Seckle pear some day, so I had better be ready
for him.

Grandmother told us such a nice story to-day I am going to write it down
in my journal. I think I shall write a book some day. Miss Caroline
Chesebro did, and I don't see why I can't. If I do, I shall put this
story in it. It is a true story and better than any I found in three
story books Grandmother gave us to read this week, "Peep of Day," "Line
Upon Line," and "Precept Upon Precept," but this story was better than
them all. One night Grandfather was locking the front door at nine
o'clock and he heard a queer sound, like a baby crying. So he unlocked
the door and found a bandbox on the stoop, and the cry seemed to come
from inside of it. So he took it up and brought it into the dining-room
and called the two girls, who had just gone upstairs to bed. They came
right down and opened the box, and there was a poor little girl baby,
crying as hard as could be. They took it out and rocked it and sung to
it and got some milk and fed it and then sat up all night with it, by
the fire. There was a paper pinned on the baby's dress with her name on
it, "Lily T. LaMott," and a piece of poetry called "Pity the Poor
Orphan." The next morning, Grandfather went to the overseer of the poor
and he said it should be taken to the county house, so our hired man got
the horse and buggy, and one of the girls carried the baby and they took
it away. There was a piece in the paper about it, and Grandmother pasted
it into her "Jay's Morning and Evening Exercises," and showed it to us.
It said, "A Deposit After Banking Hours." "Two suspicious looking
females were seen about town in the afternoon, one of them carrying an
infant. They took a train early in the morning without the child. They
probably secreted themselve