Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 Part 8

BONANZA, IDAHO.

I like to read all the letters from the children in YOUNG PEOPLE, and I thought I would tell about my puppies. They bark if any one comes in the room. One catches another by the tail and growls, and the other jumps around and barks. There are three of them. Their mother is sick, and coughs up blood. I wish some boy could tell me what to do for her.

The snow is eighteen inches deep here yet (May 8), but it has been over six feet deep here this winter.

F. M. G.

MILLS CITY, MONTANA.

I am always glad when YOUNG PEOPLE comes. I like all the stories very much. We have two buffaloes, ten cows, a little calf, two horses, and a little colt; and I have two cats, a dog named Rose, and some chickens of my own. We have beautiful house plants, and flowers growing in the garden in summer. I have two sisters and a brother. My oldest sister is at school in Bismarck. I am eleven years old.

LAURA B.

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK.

I have a pet guinea-pig, which came across the ocean with me. It is pure white. I have made a house for it to live in during the summer. I visited Paris, and saw the last Exposition. It was not as large as ours, but it was very fine. I have a very nice collection of stamps and coins. My oldest coin, a Moorish one, is dated 1270. I have another dated 1275. Both the coins were given to me by Captain Boyton. Is it true that he was killed? I would like to know.

CHARLES L. S.

Captain Boyton is not dead, but is in good health, and on the occasion of a recent boat-race at Washington was floating about in his famous life-saving costume.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

I have copied all the recipes, and we have a nice cook that lets me try them, and helps me, too. She makes the crust for me, and I make the inside for an awful good lemon pie. Here is the recipe, and I wish Puss Hunter and the girls would try it and say what they think of it. Take one tea-cup of white sugar; one table-spoonful of b.u.t.ter; one egg; one large lemon; one tea-cup of boiling water; one table-spoonful of corn starch. Mix the b.u.t.ter and sugar in a bowl; then put the boiling water over the fire, and stir the corn starch (which you must first wet in a little cold water) into it till it thickens. Now pour it over the b.u.t.ter and sugar, and set it away to cool. When it is cold, add the juice and grated peel of the lemon (carefully removing the seeds) and the beaten egg. Bake it without any top crust. Three times all this makes two nice pies for big people, our cook says.

YOUNG PEOPLE is--oh, too good for anything. When I grow older, I am going to take a dozen copies for poor little boys and girls whose papa and mamma can not take it for them, as mine do for me.

HELEN.

U. S. NAVAL ACADEMY, ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND.

This is a lovely place to live in. Every morning and afternoon the band plays in the Naval Academy grounds, and almost every afternoon we play croquet until the band stops. The music always begins with "The Star-spangled Banner," and ends with "Hail, Columbia."

LIZZIE C. F.

DANVILLE, ILLINOIS.

I thank you, dear contributors, for the recipes you have already sent me, and I would like some more, especially a good recipe for bread.

I would like to know the name of this little flower. It was given to me, and I think it was found growing in the water.

PUSS HUNTER.

Your flower is a cowslip, which grows in wet meadows, and is one of the earliest blossoms of spring.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

I am twelve years old, and I am very fond of flowers, and take great delight in hunting for them. There is a flower which grows in the woods and open fields here, called the "Star of Bethlehem."

The blossom is a little white five-pointed star, and it blooms in great quant.i.ties in the month of May. If "Genevieve," of California, sends her address, I shall like to exchange pressed flowers with her.

BERTHA S.

I would be pleased to exchange pressed leaves with Mary Wright, of Kansas, if she will wait until fall, as I always have a very nice collection of autumn leaves. I would also like to exchange pressed ferns with some little girl in the fall. I think HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE is a splendid paper.

EMMA FOLTZ, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

QUITMAN, GEORGIA.

I am a little Southern girl, eight years old to-day. Grandpa gave me a gold ring, and papa gave me a beautiful doll. Oranges, bananas, and sugar-cane grow here, and we have flowers and mocking-birds all winter. Please tell me what willow "p.u.s.s.ies"

are.

INDIA T.

If you look in the Post-office Box of No. 25 you will find a description of willow "p.u.s.s.ies," given in answer to questions from other young correspondents in the far South.

JULIAN G.--The first volume of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE will be finished with the fifty-second number, issued the last Tuesday in October, 1880.

S. G. SMITH.--"Tumble home" indicates curving in toward the top; "tumbling in aft," curving under.

H. T. M.--The characters you inquire about are not letters, but signs understood only by the members of a certain society.

NEW YORK CITY.

Could you tell me the origin of the name "Forget-me-not" as applied to flowers? I have heard there is some historical legend or story concerning it. I should be very glad if any of the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE could inform me where such a legend is to be found.