should know his _Rise of Silas Lapham_ and _A
Hazard of New Fortunes_, as well as his social and literary criticism.
As stimulating and alluring a volume of selections may be made for
high-school students as this volume will be, we venture to predict, for
the younger boys and girls of the elementary school.

In this little book of readings we have made, we believe, an entirely
legitimate and desirable use of the books named above. _A Boy's Town_
is a series of detachable pictures and episodes into which the boy--or
the healthy girl who loves boys' books--may dip, as the selections here
given will, we believe, tempt him to do. The same is true of _The Flight
of Pony Baker_. The volume is for class-room enjoyment; for happy hours
of profitable reading--profitable, because happy. Much of it should be
read aloud rather than silently, and dramatic justice be done to the
scenes and conversations which have dramatic quality.

PERCIVAL CHUBB.

I

ADVENTURES IN A BOY'S TOWN

HOW PONY BAKER CAME PRETTY NEAR RUNNING OFF WITH A CIRCUS

Just before the circus came, about the end of July, something happened
that made Pony mean to run off more than anything that ever was. His
father and mother were coming home from a walk, in the evening; it was
so hot nobody could stay in the house, and just as they were coming to
the front steps Pony stole up behind them and tossed a snowball which he
had got out of the garden at his mother, just for fun. The flower struck
her very softly on her hair, for she had no bonnet on, and she gave a
jump and a hollo that made Pony laugh; and then she caught him by the
arm and boxed his ears.

"Oh, my goodness! It was you, was it, you good-for-nothing boy? I
thought it was a bat!" she said, and she broke out crying and ran into
the house, and would not mind his father, who was calling after her,
"Lucy, Lucy, my dear child!"

Pony was crying, too, for he did not intend to frighten his mother, and
when she took his fun as if he had done something wicked he did not know
what to think. He stole off to bed, and he lay there crying in the dark
and expecting that she would come to him, as she always did, to have him
say that he was sorry when he had been wicked, or to tell him that she
was sorry when she thought she had not been quite fair with him. But she
did not come, and after a good while his father came and said: "Are you
awake, Pony? I am sorry your mother