s ago my brother and I had a little bazaar
which I should like to tell you about. We had been collecting and making
things for a good long time, so we had nearly forty, most of which we
made ourselves, but some were given to us by friends. I copied some of
the things out of "A Hundred Christmas Presents," in ST. NICHOLAS for
November, 1877. They were very pretty, especially the little
wheelbarrow. We had a little refreshment stall with sweets,
ginger-snaps, etc., and they sold more quickly than anything. We got L1,
1s., a guinea, which we sent to an orphan institution in London.

I like your magazine very much, I do not know which part is the
best.--Yours truly,

M. Y. GIBSON.

Bay Shore, Long Island.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I lived in Germany over four years, so I know
something about it. I should like to tell you about rafts on the Elbe.

They are of several kinds. Some are of boards all ready to be sold,
others of round timber, just cut; another kind is of squared logs, and a
fourth of both logs and boards. As the Elbe is not a rapid river, the
unaided progress of a raft is very slow. So each man on it has a pole
with an iron point on one end, while the other end fits to the shoulder;
and the men pole along most of the time. To each end of the raft there
are fastened three or four oars about twenty feet long; and with these
they steer. The Elbe is so shallow that in the summer time boys walk
through it; but in the spring the snow melting in the mountains at the
river's source (Bohemia) makes freshets which carry off animals, boards,
planks and sometimes houses. Under the arch-ways of the bridge at
Dresden during these freshets, there are suspended large nets, two
corners of each of which are fastened to the railing of the bridge, the
lower side is heavily weighted and dropped, and so the net catches
anything which comes down the stream.--Yours respectfully,

FRANK BERGH TAYLOR.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I wish that you would tell me how to make skeleton
leaves. I have seen some done just lovely, and so I think that I should
like to try--even if I don't succeed--to make some myself. I am going to
the country this summer to stay quite a long time, and so I shall have a
chance to get a great many different kinds of leaves.--Your constant
reader,

IRENE C. W.

Irene's question is answered in Volume III. of ST. NICHOLAS, pages
115 and 116,--the number for December, 1875.

THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURE