_are_ you anyhow?"

_Hedgehog._--"Suppose you put out your paw, and try."

_Snip._--"I don't like the look of those prickles."

_Hedgehog._--"Don't be a coward, Snip! Put your nose down, and feel of
my nice soft back."

Whether the cunning hedgehog really cheated him by any such remarks as
these, I cannot say. But Snip at last mustered courage enough to put his
nose down to the ball. Rash Snip! Up rose the bristles, and pricked him
so that he ran back to the house, howling and yelping as if he had been
shot.

Having put Snip to flight, the hedgehog quietly unrolled itself, thrust
out its queer little head with the long snout, and crept along on its
way rejoicing. As for Snip, I am quite sure he will never put his nose
to the back of a hedgehog again, as long as he lives.

CHARLES SELWYN.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Little Black Monkey]

LITTLE black monkey sat up in a tree;
Little black monkey, he grinned at me;
He put out his paw for a cocoanut,
And he dropped it down on my occiput.

The occiput is a part, you know,
Of the head which does on my shoulders grow;
And it's very unpleasant to have it hit,
Especially when there's no hair on it.

I took up my gun, and I said, "Now why,
Little black monkey, should you not die?
I'll hit you soon in a vital part,
It may be your head, or it may be your heart."

I steadied the gun, and I aimed it true:
The trigger it snapped, and the bullet it flew;
But just where it went to, I cannot tell,
For I never _could_ see where that bullet fell.

Little black monkey still sat in the tree,
And placidly, wickedly, grinned at me:
I took up my gun, and walked away,
And postponed his death till another day.

LAURA E. RICHARDS.

THE LITTLE SCISSORS-GRINDER.

WILLIE is a three-year-old darling. This summer he visited his aunt in
the city, and was very much interested in the curious sights and sounds
which abound there.

A few days after his return home, when his mamma sat on the piazza with
some friends, Willie marched up the gravel path with his little
wheelbarrow on his back.

He stopped at the foot of the steps, set his burden down, resting it
upon the handles, so that it stood upright. Then holding it with one
hand, and rolling