em there.

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The wind that night was cold and keen,
And frosted Brownies oft were seen.
They clapped their hands and stamped their toes,
They rubbed with snow each numbing nose,
And drew the frost from every face
Before it proved a painful case.

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[Illustration]

And thus, in spite of every ill,
The task was carried forward still.
Some were by nature well designed
For work of this laborious kind,
And never felt so truly great,
As when half crushed beneath a weight.
While wondering comrades stood aghast,
And thought each step must be the last.

But some were slight and ill could bear
The heavy loads that proved their share,

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Though at some sport or cunning plan
They far beyond their comrades ran.

Around the house some staid to pile
The gathered wood in proper style;
Which ever harder work they found
As high and higher rose the mound.

Above the window-sill it grew,
And next, the cornice hid from view;
And, ere the dawn had forced a stop,
The pile o'erlooked the chimney-top.

Some hands were sore, some backs were blue,
And legs were scraped with slipping through
Where ice and snow had left their mark
On rounded log and smoothest bark.

That morning, when the parson rose,
Against the pane he pressed his nose,
And tried the outer world to scan
To learn how signs of weather ran.

But, 'round the house, behind, before,
In front of window, shed, and door,
The wood was piled to such a height
But little sky was left in sight!

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When next he climbed his pulpit stair,
He touched upon the strange affair,
And asked a blessing rich to fall
Upon the heads and homes of all
Who through the night had worked so hard
To heap the fuel 'round the yard.
His hearers knew they had no claim
To such a blessing if it came,
But whispered: "We don't understand--
It must have been the Brownie Band."

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THE BROWNIES' FOURTH OF JULY.

WHEN Independence D