ink it does," quoth Saxe, shrugging his shoulders; "and
as I promised to give him my purse whenever I _did_ meet with him, here it
is. And now, if you'll come along with me, and serve as farrier to my
head-quarters' staff, I promise you that you shall never have cause to
repent of having met with Maurice de Saxe."

And the marshal was as good as his word.

[B] ...[missing text]... Hercules" is said to have achieved a similar
feat more than once.

[Illustration]

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

It is beginning to feel something like spring. However, we mustn't be too
certain, for April is the month for little tricks of all kinds. Let us be
careful and not be caught by make-believe spring weather.

HAIR-BRAIDS IN THE OLDEN TIME.

I'm told that, eight centuries ago, girls and women wore their hair in
braids. Each woman had two braids, which she slipped separately into long,
narrow cases of silk, or some other material, and wound with ribbon. They
hung like base-ball bats. On the statue of a queen of those times, the
braids, cased in this style, reached lower than the knees.

Years ago, every British sailor dressed his hair in a pigtail at the back,
so that it hung

"Long and bushy and thick,
Like a pump-handle stuck on the end of a stick."

I heard of one sailor whose mates did his hair so tightly that he couldn't
shut his eyes, and he nearly got punished for staring at his commanding
officer,--a hair-breadth escape, as somebody called it.

KNOTS AND THE NORTH POLE.

My feathered friends tell me of a bird called the knot, something like a
snipe in shape, whose color is ashen gray in winter and bright Indian red
in summer. They say he is very particular about the weather, and likes
best fine bracing days with sunshine and a moderate breeze; so, in winter
he flies south, but in summer he goes farther north than man has yet been
able to go.

Now, I've been told that the farther north you go, the colder is the
climate; but this bird, who likes pleasant weather so much, goes beyond
the coldest places known! Perhaps he has found a cheerful and comfortable
summer home, bright and bracing, somewhere near the North Pole, on which
somebody will find him, may be, one of these days, quietly perched,
preening himself, and looking at a distance like a bit of red cloth on a
broomstick. If he _has_ found a cozy spot away up there, he's smarter than
any Arctic explorer I ever heard of.