ked.

Master Sweepstakes clapped his hands with loud exultations, and
insulting laughter. But his laughter ceased when our provident hero
calmly drew from his pocket an excellent piece of whipcord.

"The everlasting whipcord, I declare!" exclaimed Hal, when he saw that
it was the very same that had tied up the parcel.

"Yes," said Ben, as he fastened it to his bow, "I put it into my pocket
to-day, on purpose, because I thought I might happen to want it."

He drew his bow the third and last time.

"O Papa," cried little Patty, as his arrow hit the mark, "it's the
nearest, is not it the nearest?"

Master Sweepstakes, with anxiety, examined the hit. There could be no
doubt. Ben was victorious! The bow, the prize bow, was now delivered to
him; and Hal, as he looked at the whipcord, exclaimed, "How _lucky_ this
whipcord has been to you, Ben!"

"It is _lucky_ perhaps you mean, that he took care of it," said Mr.
Gresham.

"Ay," said Hal, "very true; he might well say, 'Waste not, want not'; it
is a good thing to have two strings to one's bow."

382

Only a few of those who have written
immediately for children have produced work
distinguished by the same high artistic
qualities found in the work of writers for
readers of mature minds. Of these few one is
Mrs. Juliana Horatia Ewing (1841-1885). Edmund
Gosse has said that of the numerous English
authors who have written successfully on or for
children only two "have shown a clear
recollection of the mind of healthy childhood
itself. . . . Mrs. Ewing in prose and Mr.
Stevenson in verse have sat down with them
without disturbing their fancies, and have
looked into the world of 'make-believe' with
the children's own eyes." They might lead, he
thinks, "a long romp in the attic when nurse
was out shopping, and not a child in the house
should know that a grown-up person had been
there." This is very high praise indeed and it
suggests the reason for the immense popularity
of "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life,"
"Daddy Darwin's Dovecot,"
"Lob-Lie-by-the-Fire," "Mrs. Overtheway's
Remembrances," and many another of the stories
that delighted young readers when they first
appeared in the pages of _Aunt Judy's
Magazine_. The preeminence of "Jackanape