“SING-A-SING!”

BY S.C.  STONE.

[Illustration]

  Listen! and hear the tea-kettle sing: 
      “Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing!”
  It matters not how hot the fire,
  It only sends its voice up higher: 
      “Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing! 
       Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing!”

  Listen! and hear the tea-kettle sing: 
      “Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing!”
  As if ’t were task of fret and toil
  To bring cold water to a boil! 
      “Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing! 
       Sing a-sing a-sing a-sing!”

NOW, OR THEN?

BY GAIL HAMILTON.

I suppose the wise young women—­fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old—­who read ST. NICHOLAS, who understand the most complex vulgar fractions, who cipher out logarithms “just for fun,” who chatter familiarly about “Kickero” and “luliuse Kiser,” and can bang a piano dumb and helpless in fifteen minutes—­they, I suppose, will think me frivolous and unaspiring if I beg them to lay aside their science,—­which is admirable,—­and let us reason together a few minutes about such unimportant themes as little points of good manners.

A few months ago I had the pleasure of talking with a gentleman who thought he remembered being aroused from his midnight sleep by loud rejoicings in the house and on the streets over the news that Lord Cornwallis had surrendered the British to the American forces.  He was only two years old at that time; but, he said, he had a very strong impression of the house being full of light, of many people hurrying hither and yon, and of the watchman’s voice in the street penetrating through all the din with the cry—­“Past twelve o’clock and Cornwallis is taken!”

Among many interesting reminiscences and reflections, this dignified and delightful old gentleman said he thought the young people of to-day were less mannerly than in the olden time, less deferential, less decorous.  This may be true, and I tried to be sufficiently deferential to my courtly host, not to disagree with him.  But when I look upon the young people of my own acquaintance, I recall that William went, as a matter of course, to put the ladies in their carriage; Jamie took the hand luggage as naturally as if he were born for nothing else; Frank never failed to open a door for them; Arthur placed Maggie in her chair at table before he took his own; Nelly and Ruth came to my party just as sweet and bright as if they did not know that the young gentlemen whom they had expected to meet were prevented from attending; while Lucy will run herself out of breath for you, and Mary sits and listens with flattering intentness, and Anne and Alice and—­well, looking over my constituency, I find the young people charming.