roasts
things. You just stick a sharp stick through it and roast it. It is good,
but it makes your stummuck feel funny in the morning. There is a nother
store, where the girls get things, and there is a place to get your shoes
mended, and a depot, and a place for horse-shoes, and a church.

The box was very good. So good-by. D.

P. S.--Mr. Wiseman said you'd feel bad about these three demerits in my
report, but you needn't. Jim has got about ten demerits. All the boys gets
demerits. One was a old bottle I threw in the hall, 'cause I didn't want
it on the table, and one was some water I threw out the window, and a boy
was walking under. I had just washed me, and he got wet, and one was a
noise. You make it with a tin tomato can and a string. I'll fix one for
you when I get home. The bottom has come out of my bank. And my trousers,
the gray ones. How is the baby? HARDIN.

P. S.--All the boys say Hardin.

[Illustration: A FULL STOP.]

UNDER THE LILACS.

BY LOUISA M. ALCOTT.

CHAPTER XI.

SUNDAY.

Mrs. Moss woke Ben with a kiss next morning, for her heart yearned over
the fatherless lad as if he had been her own, and she had no other way of
showing her sympathy. Ben had forgotten his troubles in sleep, but the
memory of them returned as soon as he opened his eyes, heavy with the
tears they had shed. He did not cry any more, but felt strange and lonely
till he called Sancho and told him all about it, for he was shy even with
kind Mrs. Moss, and glad when she went away.

Sancho seemed to understand that his master was in trouble, and listened
to the sad little story with gurgles of interest, whines of condolence,
and intelligent barks whenever the word "Daddy" was uttered. He was only a
brute, but his dumb affection comforted the boy more than any words, for
Sanch had known and loved "father" almost as long and well as his son, and
that seemed to draw them closely together now they were left alone.

"We must put on mourning, old feller. It's the proper thing, and there's
nobody else to do it now," said Ben, as he dressed, remembering how all
the company wore bits of crape somewhere about them at Melia's funeral.

It was a real sacrifice of boyish vanity to take the blue ribbon with its
silver anchors off the new hat and replace it with the dingy black band
from the old one, but Ben was quite sincere in doing this, though
doubtless his