I I ”

AM a tiny tot, and have not much to say ;

But I must make, I'm told, the “Welcome Speech” to-day. Dear friends, we're glad you've come to hear us speak and sing. We'll do our very best to please in every thing. Our speeches we have learned; and if you'll hear us through, You'll see what tiny tots—if they but try—can do.

YOU'D SCARCE EXPECT.

David EVERETT.

Y

scarce expect one of my age
To speak in public on the stage;
And if I chance to fall below
Demosthenes or Cicero,
Don't view me with a critic's eye,
But pass my imperfections by.
Large streams from little fountains flow;
Tall oaks from little acorns grow;
And though I now am small and young,
Of judgment weak and feeble tongue,
Yet all great learned men, like me,
Once learned to read their A, B, C.
But why may not Columbia's soil
Rear men as great as Britain's isle ?-
Exceed what Greece and Rome have done?
Or any land beneath the sun ?
Mayn't Massachusetts boast as great
As any other sister State ?
Or where's the town, go far and near,
That does not find a rival here?
Or where's the boy, but three feet high,
Who's made improvements more than I?
These thoughts inspire my youthful mind
To be the greatest of mankind:
Great, not like Cæsar, stained with blood,
But only great as I am good.

“What is your business, my pretty fair maid ?” "I am a war correspondent," she sayed. “And you go into battle, my pretty fair maid ?” “I write up the choirs, sir," she sayed.

SCENE: TOMMY, a country boy, is talking to his friends.

PA

A says this Christmas business is all stuff. I says to pa: “That suits me, as long as there's plenty of stuff.”

Pa said he didn't b'lieve in ev'rybody strainin' themselves for the sake of givin' presents. I think pa is right. I think ev'rybody oughter give presents, an' good ones, too, but I don' think they oughter strain themselves, an' I don't b’lieve they do, either, as I never heard anybody complainin' that way when Christmas was over. The only one who strains himself, I guess, is Santy Claus. He always seems to have the biggest load, an' has the most ups an' downs.

I like Christmas, an’ wisht it come oftener, but it can't hold a candle to Fourth of July for fun. Christmas was invented by the Pilgrims, but it's lucky for us they never got no patent on it. It's free to ev'rybody nowadays, though my Uncle Bill says it costs a good round sum to git past it.

A good many good things come with Christmas, namely: Santy Claus, skatin', Christmas-trees, new boots, punkin-pies, turkey, plum-puddin's, wishbones, anno school. I hope the teacher won't git so many presents as she got last year. She brought 'em to school ev'ry day for a week an' had 'em all over her desk. My! but didn't she feel big?

Christmas comes but once a year. It is well for everybody to remember that so as not to be disappointed 'cause it don't come any oftener. I always feel sorry for city children, 'cause it must be such a hard job for Santy to git down them little poked-up chimblys. We have got a big fireplace in our house, but we don't use it. Pa says it's easier for ma to put coal on than it is for him to chop wood. That ain't a very good excuse, 'cause ma cuts all the kindlin's when I ain't to home. Pa makes some

awful funny excuses when he don't feel like doin' anything.

I don't b’lieve in givin' much presents to girls. Last Christmas my Uncle Bill sent the teacher a present, an' the next night she went on a sleigh-ride with Bennie Mason's big brother. The next day I heard Uncle Bill tellin' pa that “wimmen is an uncertain quantity," whatever that means. But our teacher ain't no uncertain quantity—she weighs two hundred if she weighs a pound.

They're a-goin' to have a Christmas-tree up to the town hall, an’ I'm goin' to take it in. I told ma to do the Mason trick this year, an' she is goin' to. The Mason children git a whole lot of presents in their stockin's, then their mother takes the same presents an' has 'em hung on the Christmas-tree in the town-hall, then they have them hung again on another tree to home. No wonder some folks can have a lot of Christmas presents when they git 'em three times over!

I b’lieve in a square deal, “an' folk's o' that sort don't count for much after all,” pa says, “for we allus find them out.” An’ we does. An' that's the reason I like Fourth of July—'cause ev'rybody's square then an' there's lots of fun.

TRAMP AND CUR.

FRED EMERSON BROOKS.

[By permission of the Cassell Publishing Co., Publishers.]

Come here! I'll share my crust with you;
Enough for one's enough for two.
You want a friend, and friends are few ?

That's just my case.
You're poor and homely, by the by,
And somewhat ragged? So am I.
And yet there's somethin' in your eye

That's not so base.

Come right up here, you little scamp;
I wouldn't hurt you—I'm a tramp!
Tell me what makes your eyes so damp?

Have you some sorrow?
What, lost your father? Needn't whine!
And mother, too? Well, I've lost mine.
Suppose we lonely orphans dine,

And weep to-morrow!

You never need be friendless more;
Henceforth, we'll tramp from door to door,
Divide each day our scanty store,

Quite all we need;
And if no other wealth we find
Than bliss of a contented mind,
The less we have to leave behind

For legal greed.

He owns the most who wants the least,
And learns contentment from the beast;
The less the food the better feast-

So let us feed.
Your share, the meat and all the bone !
Since friendship only may be shown
By what we are, not what we own,

We're friends indeed !