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‘ It was to have been so jolly, and now all is spoilt !”
‘ What a horrid bother this all is!’

‘You girls had better look up your sweetest tempers,
as I shall make a point of teasing you all the after-
noon to work off my rage,’ said brother Tom.

“Mother came in just then, and heard about Tom’s
intentions. She was heartily sorry that we should
be so disappointed, and racked her brain to find a
place to keep us all well employed for this afternoon,
that we might forget the unlucky fair.

‘Children, do you remember the cobbler’s family ?
You have often been to his door with nurse. Well,
it seems they have had the scarlet fever, too, and are
now in sad trouble. Their eldest girl of sixteen has
died of it, and besides all their distress the father is
so poor that he has to go on cobbling as hard as he
can, that he may be able to spare an afternoon to
attend the funeral; and the mother, poor thing!
almost blinded with tears, is stitching away at some
old black rags, to make ¢he children tidy to go, too.

_ Don’t you think we might help them ?’

We felt quite sobered. now, and thoughtless: mur-

_Taurs were hushed at hearing of this real trouble.

Tom knew the girl by sight, and he’ remembered
seeing her only last week helping her father with
the finer parts of his work. I think we were now
all in a minute ashamed of our grumblings, and very
thankful that little Jackie was spared to us.

Bertha at once jumped up. ‘ Mother, do let us buy
some black stuff. I have not spent my fairing
money. If nurse would cut them out for us, Rosa
and I could easily make frocks for the two elder girls.
Tom isn’t much good, to be sure, but I know what
he can do. May we have a saucepan up here and
make some toffee? He can do that while we are
sewing, and then I don’t think one of us will long for
the fair. Do say yes, mother?’

I am sure mother said ‘ Yes,’ for I remember how
good that toffee tasted. Tom managed to supply us

‘well with it all the time we were sewing, and I

don’t believe those frocks were at all ‘stickied’ in
spite of it.

Here my recollections were broken into by Julia’s
cheerful voice,—

‘Cousin Clare, it has cleared up, I do declare!
Shall we try a walk? The sea does look so lovely
when it is rough, and if it is too windy for the shore
we can turn into the Aquarium.’ C. A. F.

 

 

A FATHER RESCUING A CHILD
FROM AN ALLIGATOR.

FEXWO little girls, daughters of Mr. Flam R. Black-

well, living on the bay of Biloxi, while bathing
in front of their home, were attacked by an enormous
alligator.

The eldest, a girl of about seven years of age,
was holding the youngest, an infant of two years,
in her hauds, and was quietly enjoying her bath, when
suddenly her little sister was snatched from her and
borne swiftly away from the shore. Terrified beyond
measure, and unable to render any help to her poor
little sister, the elder girl uttered a scream, which
reached the ear of the father, who was passing within

 

 

thirty or forty yards of the spot where his daughters
were bathing. Mr. Blackwell, who is an active and
athletic man, rushed to the spot just in time to see
his little daughter being borne out into the bay by an
alligator. Nerved to almost superhuman effort by
the desperate situation of his child, the father leaped
into the water in pursuit of the would-be destroyer of
his daughter, which was then some twenty-five or
thirty yards from shore. he water, for a distance
of forty or fifty yards out into the bay from the point
where the children went bathing, ranges in depth
from one and a half to two feet, and then suddenly
has a depth of forty or fifty feet. Both the alligator
and the father seemed to realise that if the deep water
in front of them were once reached, pursuit and re-
covery would be alike impossible; both, therefore,

did their utmost, the one to reach the deep awater,
the other to prevent it. In this struggle, although
sinking to his waist in the soft mud at the bottom at
each bound, the father was successful. He grasped
his child by. the arm about ten feet from deep
water.

' The alligator, which all the while had held the
child’s foot in his mouth, alarmed and confused by the
boldness of the assault, released its hold and made its
way rapidly into the deep water in front of it. The
father, almost exhausted, raised his child out of the
water, and seeing that it still lived, by desperate
efforts reached the shore, and placed the child safely
in the arms of its mother. ‘The little girl was unhurt,
with the exception of a couple of bruises on its foot,
made by the teeth of the monster.

 

 

A CLEVER GANDER.

OME years ago I went with my
sister to call at a cottage. In
approaching it we passed a goose
and gander, with a thriving family.
of young ones ; the gander being
at the time busy in inflicting
punishment, with beak and wings,
on one of his goslings. My sister
went into the cottage, and while
I waited for her I saw the old
man who lived in the cottage
walking along a footpath leading
from it, followed by the gander,
which had left its family and its
quarrel to walk meekly at his
heels like a dog. When he saw, however, that he
was going off the open ground it mounted an eminence,
watched him till he was out of sight, and then re-
turned to its proper sphere.

When his daughter came out I asked her to explain
matters, as to whether the gander was in the habit
of following her father, and how she accounted for
it. In answer to my questions she said, that it had
not been reared as a pet, but had been bought when
grown up; and that it was not by giving it food
that her father had gained its affection, for if he gave
it any it stood at his side while the rest ate it.
‘How, then, does he tame it?’ I asked. The reply
was, ‘He just claps it on the head, and says, “My
man.” ” J. E.