of the choirs on earth and the choirs in
heaven. "Don't mind it, Paul!" were the words they sung, so sweetly and
tenderly that for many days they rang in his ears.

_Carleton._

[Illustration]

NEW-YEAR CAROL.

[Illustration]

Ding, Dong, Bell!
Little children, down the turnpike goes the year,
Down through every dell,
All the bells of all the country in its ear:
Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!
Through the meadows and the woods, o'er the plain,
Past where children dwell,
All the children, some in joy and some in pain:
Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!
Is it from a belfry, or the beating heart
Of the year, this swell,
Solemn like the steps of friends who have to part?
Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!
Little children's homes in heaven and on earth,
All have hearts to tell
How good actions overflow the year with mirth:
Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!
And it needeth not a steeple's voice to say,
What a dreary knell
Hearts are ringing as their goodness flies away:
Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!
Down the turnpike for you comes another year;
Children, treat it well:
Naught but goodness brings to homes right jolly cheer:
Ding, Dong, Bell!

_John Weiss._

FARMING FOR BOYS.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM
AND GARDEN,--HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.

NO. I.

There is an old farm-house in the State of New Jersey, not a hundred
miles from the city of Trenton, having the great railroad which runs
between New York and Philadelphia so near to it that one can hear the
whistle of the locomotive as it hurries onward every hour in the day,
and see the trains of cars as they whirl by with their loads of living
freight. The laborers in the fields along the road, though they see
these things so frequently, invariably pause in their work and watch the
advancing train until it passes them, and follow it with their eyes
until it is nearly lost in the distance. The boy leans upon his hoe, the
mower rests upon his scythe, the ploughman halts his horses in the
furrow,--all stop to gaze upon a spectacle that has long ceased to be
either a wonder or a novelty. Why it is so may be difficult to answer,
except tha