or flower beds, hanging baskets, and window boxes,
filled with nasturtiums, sweet-peas, and mignonette. And our plans look
so beautiful on paper that I can almost smell the flowers.

And now do you not think that we were right to call our club the "Happy
Club"?

A LETTER PROM A LAND TURTLE.

BY ALLAN FORMAN.

My young master said that he was going to write a letter to YOUNG PEOPLE
about me, but Charley Bates just came in and asked him to go out and
play, and I guess that he has forgotten all about it. My master don't
know as much about me as I do myself, anyhow, and I have never told him
anything, so I don't see how he could write. He has left me on his
table, and I just looked over the edge, and it is 'most a mile high, I
guess, so I won't try to get down. I'll take his pen and tell you some
things about my life and adventures. You need not think that because I
am only a turtle I have had no adventures.

I was born of an adventurous family. My great-grandfather was dropped by
an eagle on the head of AEschylus, the Grecian poet, the eagle having
mistaken the poet's bald head for a stone, and it is from my
great-grandfather, who, as you see, was so closely brought into contact
with one of the most learned heads of ancient Greece, I inherit my
talent for literature. Another relation of mine, an uncle on my mother's
side, was the principal in the great walking match which is so
graphically described by AEsop. But enough of my family. I promised to
tell you something about my life. I am so sleepy that I don't know as I
can make it very interesting.

You see, we turtles stay awake all summer, and sleep all winter; we are
_hibernating_ animals, my master says. At first I thought that he meant
that we were of Irish extraction, and as I am very proud of my Greek
descent, the next time I saw the dictionary on the floor I found the
word. If you don't know what it means, you had better look it out too:
you will remember it better than if I told you.

My master read about a cousin of mine who lived for a time with a
Reverend Mr. Wood, and ate bread and milk, and climbed on the footstool,
and did all sorts of tricks; so he came and dug me out of the nice hole
where I was asleep for the winter, brought me into his room, and before
I was fairly awake thrust my head into a saucer of milk. Of course I
would not eat. Then he tried to make me climb; but I was so bewildered
that I drew in my head and shut up my shell. My ma