Happy Days for Boys and Girls Part 26

The wind blew very strong.

"I do declare," said he, "I shouldn't wonder a bit if the wind blew me away."

Que was a truthful boy; but he did wonder very much when he found, two seconds afterwards, that the wind _was_ blowing him away. But he didn't wonder at all, when he lay, a minute later, against a huge apple tree; partly because people generally get through wondering when they are at the end of anything, but mostly because the blow stunned Que, so that he didn't know anything for an hour.

When he gradually came to himself, he didn't know where he was. Then a little wind shook a green apple down on his nose, and he concluded that he was under an apple tree; which was quite correct.

Then he looked about to see whether he was in the United States or not; he saw the five juniper trees that had been standing in a row, half a mile from his father's house, ever since he could remember, and concluded that he must be; wherein he was again quite correct.

Then he wondered if any one would come for him, for he felt so stiff and sore that he thought he never could go home alone.

"They'll come for me, _I_ know; for if I've had a gale they must have had one; and if they have had one they'll know that I've had one. Of course they'll come."

Que felt round for his mail-bag, and got his head on it, and waited.

While he was lying there it occurred to him that the people down in the village wouldn't have been walking about with bags broader than themselves to windward of them, and mightn't have felt the breeze as he did; so his last reasoning wasn't correct at all.

"I'll bet they didn't feel it a bit!" thought Que; and by this time he was so fully in possession of his original faculties, that his reasoning was quite correct again. No one else had felt the gale.

Que put his head on the bag and thought that his end had come, and so cried himself to sleep.

His family had not felt the gale very heavily; but when tea-time came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when darkness came, and Que didn't, they felt that; and when a report came, with a growl, from the Point that they wanted their mail, Que's father started out with a lantern to find it.

Que, having finished his nap, felt better, and tried to get up; but his ankle didn't want to move; and when he tried again it actually wouldn't move; so he lay down again to wait and watch. When he saw the lantern go by, he called, and his father came.

"What are you doing here, sir?"

"Nothing," said Que.

"Get up, then."

"I can't," said Que.

"You've been asleep, sir."

"Yes, sir," said Que.

"What have you done with the mail-bag?"

"It is the mail-bag that's done with me," said Que.

Then his father took him by the collar, and stood him up, and saw at once what was the matter. Que had sprained his ankle.

It seemed to Que, during the next four weeks, as if that ankle never would heal; but it did at last, and John Lee, who had carried the mail in the mean time, was loath to give the job to Que again. He felt for Que through his pain, but charged him one twelfth of fifty dollars for doing his work a month, and would like to do it a while longer.

There isn't much more to tell of Que as a mail-boy. The end of the year found him the possessor of forty-five dollars and five shillings.

The next year the Point afforded a horse, and Que took the mail on the horse's back; the year following they had a horse and wagon, and Que drove that; when they have a railway I have no doubt Que will be a conductor; and when the mail is blown through a tunnel, Que, of course, will blow it.

Even the second snag, you see, needn't lay you a dead weight on the earth.

MARY B. HARRIS.

WHAT THE CLOCK SAYS.

The clock's loud tick Says, "Time flies quick."

"Listen," says the chime; "Make the most of time, For remember, young and old, Minutes are like grains of gold; Spend them wisely, spend them well, For their worth can no man tell."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SNOW-FALL.]

THE SNOW-FALL.

Old Winter comes forth in his robe of white, He sends the sweet flowers far out of sight, He robs the trees of their green leaves quite, And freezes the pond and the river; He has spoiled the b.u.t.terfly's pretty nest, And ordered the birds not to build their nest, And banished the frog to a four months' rest, And makes all the children shiver.

Yet he does some good with his icy tread, For he keeps the corn-seeds warm in their bed, He dries up the damp which the rain had spread, And renders the air more healthy; He taught the boys to slide, and he flung Rich Christmas gifts o'er the old and young, And when cries for food from the poor were wrung, He opened the purse of the wealthy.

We like the Spring with its fine fresh air; We like the Summer with flowers so fair; We like the fruits we in Autumn share, And we like, too, old Winter's greeting: His touch is cold, but his heart is warm; So, though he brings to us snow and storm, We look with a smile on his well-known form, And ours is a gladsome meeting.

[Decoration]

St.i.tCHING AND TEACHING.

Will had had the croup. Then the measles took possession of him, and lastly, the whooping-cough, finding him well swept and garnished, entered in, and shook and throttled him in a manner quite deplorable.

His convalescence, however, was relieved of its monotony by a headlong fall from a step ladder in the library, whereby he sprained his wrist, to say nothing of the mischief that he made, in his descent, amid the ink, books, and papers.

Treading on a pin in the sewing-room was another diversion in his favor, giving him, for a while, a daily looking forward to bandages and poultices, and an opportunity to weigh the advantages of obedience in case he should ever again wish, and be forbidden, to jump out of bed and run barefoot amid the dressmaker's shreds in search of his top.

Now, all this is no uncommon experience for a small boy. I simply mention it by way of apology for introducing Will in an unamiable mood. One regrets to have one's friends make an unfavorable first impression.

This was Will's first morning at school since his recovery. He found that the boys had gone on in their Latin, had gone on in their French, leaving him far behind; they had got into decimals, and he way back pages; they had a new writing-master, and wrote with their faces turned a new way, to the great disgust of Will. They had had a botany excursion to Blue Hills, which he had lost. He was down at the foot of the cla.s.s, and at the end of the morning he had made up his desperate mind to remain there forever. It was no use for a fellow to try to put through such a pile of back lessons.

He came stamping up stairs, kicked at the nursery door, slung in his bag of books, and stood on the threshold, pouting and glaring angrily at his sister Emily.

Emily sat in the window opposite, the sunlight sifting through the flickering ivy leaves on to her golden hair and fair sweet face. She was singing over her sewing as Will made his noisy entrance. She looked up at the scowling boy in the doorway, her pale cheeks flushing with surprise and then with pity.

"What's the matter?" she asked, gently.