DEAR JACK:  Will you please tell your older boys and girls that in good systems of Kindergarten teaching they will find a great many means of amusing invalid brothers or sisters without wearying them, and many games and much fun for the younger ones, who will learn at the same time things that they ought to know.  To carry out these methods one wants sticks, blocks, slates, slats, colored balls, and other things easy to make and cheap to buy, the use of which is pleasant to teach as well as to learn and practice.

I bought lately a full set of Kindergarten apparatus such as I have named, and sent it to a little niece of mine in California, and the dear little one writes to me that she has had much happiness and enjoyment out of it.  I hope some of your young friends will try the experiment and let me know what success they have.—­I am, dear Jack, yours affectionately, A LITTLE SCHOOLMA’AM.

KAFFIR IRONING.

You all know how ironing is done here—­with flat-irons, I think somebody said.  Well, the birds tell me that the Kaffirs of South Africa don’t use flat-irons, but have quite another way.  They make the clothes into a neat flat package, which they lay on a big stone.  Then they just dance on the package until they think the clothes are smooth enough!  It must be good fun to them!  Luckily, Kaffirs don’t wear cuffs and frills.

SLIPPERS FOR HORSES.

Where do horses wear slippers?

Now, my chicks, this is not a conundrum.  So you need not be chirping out, “On their feet, of course;” or some foolish answer of that kind.  The real answer is, “Japan,”—­at least, so I’m told, and there are such numbers of other queer things there, that I don’t wonder it is so.

Well, Japanese horses wear straw slippers,—­clumsy-looking things, I should say.  But, besides that, they stand in their stables with their heads where American horses’ tails would be!  Perhaps Japanese horses like to see for themselves what is going on?

“Where is the food put?”

Why, in a bucket hung from the roof, of course.  Where else, would you suppose?

[Illustration:  ON THE ICE.]

THE LETTER-BOX.

    Fair Haven, Vt. 1877.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  Two of my sisters and myself have taken your magazine ever since it was published, and like it very much.  I am glad Miss Louisa M. Alcott is writing a story for your magazine, as I am very fond of her stories.

I have read, “Eight Cousins,” “Rose in Bloom,” “Little Men,” “Hospital Sketches,” “Aunt Jo’s Scrap-Bag,” and “Little Women,” myself, have been called “Meg, Amy, Beth and Jo.”  My oldest sister Ada, who is sixteen years old, is the “Amy” of our family; My little sister Stella, who is eleven years old, is well skilled in music, and we think