the kite where the trees are. I wanted to stay in

the field. I told him that the kite would get lodged in some tree; but he wouldn't listen to me.

TIMBOO. Is that true, Carroll?
CARROLL. Ye-yes!

TIMBOO. Then turn round here again.

CARROLL. Oh, no, Timboo!

TIMBOO. Yes, turn round.

CARROLL. No, you've snapped me enough.
TIMBOO. Then you break your word.

You agree 10 to do a thing, and now you go back on your agreement, just for fear of a little smart. ` (Snaps his own knee with the rubber.) See! See! Do you care a snap for your

word, Carroll?

CARROLL (turning his back). All right then. Is But please be gentle, Timboo.

(Timboo snaps him again. Carroll jumps

and cries out as before.)

TIMBOO. NOW, Oscar, what else did he keep back? OSCAR. Well, when the kite began to go into the tree, he called out to me, first, to run as hard as I could. Then, when the kite was tangled in the 20 branches, he told me to stop; and I did stop as soon as I could.

TIMBOO. Oh, Carroll! Worse and worse! I wish I had a bigger rubber so as to give you what you deserve.

OSCAR. NO, Timboo. Please don't snap him again.

25

TIMBOO. Well, if you forgive him, I'll let him off; and I may as well put my elastic punisher away.

OSCAR. And what about the kite and the twine? TIMBOO. Oh, it isn't worth while to trouble about sthem. When you agreed to fly the kite, you agreed as to the risks in regard to both the twine and the kite. So neither one of you should complain of the other. As soon as I have finished weeding this bed of radishes, we will go to the shop together, and unTo tangle the twine, and make a new kite.

ΙΟ

OSCAR. Thank you, Timboo!

CARROLL. Thank you, Timboo. You are very

kind.

(The boys go out, and Timboo resumes his work.)

1. This is a little play. Three of your class should take the parts and act them out as they read.

2. What was the real cause of the difficulty between Oscar and Carroll? In our courts witnesses agree to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Why?

WH

THE KEY TO THE BOX

BY KATHERINE PYLE

HAT would you do," said the little key
To the teakwood box, "except for me?"

The teakwood box gave a gentle creak
To the little key, but it did not speak.

"I believe," said the key, "that I will hide
In the crack down by the chimney side,

"Just so this proud old box may see How little it's worth except for me.'

It was long, long afterward, in a crack

They found the key, and they brought it back;

And it thought, as it chuckled and laughed to itself, "Now I'll be good to the box on the shelf.”

But the little key stopped with a shiver and shock,
For there was a bright new key in the lock;

And the old box said, "I am sorry, you see,

But the place is filled, my poor little key."

Prose and Verse for Children.

1. Who had the worse of the "joke"? What is likely to happen to people who think they are more important than their jobs?

BY MRS. G. R. ALDEN

R. PETERS, a somewhat eccentric old mer

MR

chant, stuck up a notice in a window of his store that there was a "boy wanted," and the card remained there a great while before he got the boy he 5 was after. John Simmons, and Charley Jones, and one or two besides, were taken for a few days, but none of them stood trial.

Mr. Peters had a peculiar way of trying them. There was a huge long box in the attic, full of old nails 10 and screws and miscellaneous bits of rusty hardware, and when a new boy came, the old gentleman presently found occasion to send him up there to set the box to rights, and he judged the quality of the boy by the way he managed the work. All pottered over it more 15 or less, but soon gave it up in disgust and reported that there was nothing in the box worth saving.

At last Crawford Mills was hired. He knew none of the other boys, and so did his errands in blissful ignorance of the "long box" until the second morning 20 of his stay, when in a leisure hour he was sent to put it in order. The morning passed, dinner time came, and still Crawford had not appeared from the attic. At last Mr. Peters called him. "Got through?”

25

"No, sir; there is ever so much more to do."
"All right; it is dinner time now; you may go."

After dinner back he went. All the short afternoon he was not heard from, but just as Mr. Peters was deciding to call him again, he appeared.

"I've done my best, sir," he said, "and down at the very bottom of the box I found this." "This " was 5 a five-dollar gold piece, which Crawford handed to Mr. Peters.

"That's a queer place for gold," said Mr. Peters; "it's good you found it. Well, sir, I suppose you will be on hand to-morrow morning?" This he said putting the gold piece into his pocketbook.

After Crawford had said good night and gone, Mr. Peters took the lantern and went slowly up the attic stairs. There was the long deep box in which the rubbish of twenty-five years had gathered.

15

Crawford had evidently been to the bottom of it; he had fitted in pieces of shingle to make compartments, and in the different tills he had placed the articles, with bits of shingle laid on top labeled thus: "Good screws," "Pretty good nails," "Picture nails," "Small 20 keys, somewhat bent," "Picture hooks," "Pieces of iron, whose use I don't know"; and so on through the long box.

In perfect order the box was, at last, and very little that could really be called useful was to be found 25 within it. But Mr. Peters, as he read the labels, laughed and said, "If we are not both mistaken, I have found a boy, and he has found a fortune."