[Illustration:  Dr. Johnson and his cat.]

APRIL FOOL.

Most small boys are fond of April-fooling people.  How often on the first day of April have we seen the small boy wrapping up a piece of wood or brick in the shape of a parcel bought at the store, carelessly place it on the sidewalk as if dropped by a passer-by, and then hide himself near by and wait for some one to be “fooled” by it.

Dick and Frank Slemmons, one April-fool’s day, concluded to get up an April-fool on a grander scale than usual.  They procured an old pair of pants, a shirt, pair of boots, gloves, a dunce’s cap, and a “false-face” or mask.  They took these articles to their father’s barn, and by stuffing them with straw and putting a few extra touches of paint on the mask, they made a hideous looking Guy.  To the back of this figure, near the shoulders, the boys fastened a string, and when it began to grow dark they carried it out into the yard and placed it in a sitting posture on the front fence, to fool people who were passing by.  Holding to the string they hid themselves behind the fence intending when any one passed to let the figure fall forward as if it were about to drop from the fence.  But they failed to fool anybody, for the first one to come along was Mike, their father’s hostler, who at once discovered the boys, and, saying “Ah! see the little laddie-bucks over the fince!” he grabbed the guy and took it along with him.

So the boys themselves were the only ones April fooled.

[Illustration]

IN A STORM ON THE SEA.

Little David Loomis, only eight years old, was permitted by his father, Captain Loomis, to accompany him on a whaling expedition.  While out at sea the body of a dead whale was discovered at some distance from the boat, floating in the water.  Several of the crew manned one of the smaller boats and rowed away over the glassy sea to secure the carcase.  David was allowed to go with them.  Before the boat reached the floating whale, however, a fearful squall suddenly arose; the wind screamed and whistled round their little boat; the waves, lashed to sudden fury, hissed and foamed, breaking over them like a deluge, whilst a terrible peel of thunder broke right overhead.  David was scared almost out of his senses.  He had never before seen such a storm.  But he sat still, as one of the crew had told him to do, looking out, oh! how eagerly, for some signs of his father’s vessel.  Nothing was to be seen, however, but a wild waste of heaving, tumbling billows, over which the boat seemed actually to fly.  Suddenly the clouds lifted, the wind ceased, and all was as calm as before the storm.  Nothing was to be seen of the dead whale, and the crew was content to let it float where it would, while they rowed in search of their vessel.  Ere long they were safe and sound on board with Captain Loomis.  David could not help repeating from a poem he had recited at school, the words:  “Isn’t God upon the ocean, just the same as on the land?”