“I’ll bring it in soon,” said Joe, putting his purse in a safe place.  “I don’t keep no help to sort my stuff, or I’d be on hand to-morrow.”

“Ah,” said the bland dealer, little thinking what a train of events he was starting.  “You are doing a good business; why don’t you keep a boy?  I know one who is faithful and needy!”

“Yes, yes, he’s in my cart, done up in my coat!” cried Joe, suddenly.  He beamed upon the bewildered dealer, and rushed for the door, almost crazy with the new idea.

“My wife said I’d ought to have a boy, too,” he thought, almost running toward the spot where he had left the cart, Jack, and the solitary figure in the great coat.  Joe grasped the boy.  “I’ve got a plan for you, John Harper.  I want a boy to help me; the dealer says so, my wife says so, and I say so.  You must go home with me to-night.  We’ll carry this load to the store-house; then pitch in your baggage and start for a better place than this, my lad!”

It was, indeed, “a better place” for “the boy in the box,”—­a place where he found rest and food and shelter.  After a little, he grew into the hearts of the childless couple that they called him their own.  John went to school winters, and helped Mr. Somerby summers, and got ahead so fast in his happy surroundings that ambitious Mrs. Somerby had him educated.  He is now a prosperous merchant, and a text for old Joe to enlarge upon when his wife gets too spicy.

“You wan’t nowheres around when I found our John,” he often says, “and he’s the best bargain I ever made, next to you!”

THE COCK AND THE SUN.

BY J.P.B.

[Illustration]

  A cock sees the sun as he climbs up the east;
    “Good-morning, Sir Sun, it’s high time you appear;
  I’ve been calling you up for an hour at least;
    I’m ashamed of your slowness at this time of year!”

  The sun, as he quietly rose into view,
    Looked down on the cock with a show of fine scorn;
  “You may not be aware, my young friend, but it’s true,
    That I rose once or twice before you, sir, were born!”

[Illustration:  “GRUN-SEL, GRUN-SEL, GRUN-SEL!”]

THE LONDON CHICK-WEED MAN.

BY ALEXANDER WAINWRIGHT.

Birds and flowers do much to enliven the dusky house-windows of the London streets, and both are attended to with great care.  The birds are treated to some luxuries which our American pets scarcely know of at all, in their domestic state, and among these are two small plants called chick-weed and groundsel, which grow abundantly along the hedges and in the fields on the outskirts of the smoky city.  Both chick-weed and groundsel are insignificant little things, but the epicurean lark, canary, or goldfinch finds in it a most agreeable and beneficial article of diet, quite as much superior to other green stuff as—­in the minds of some boys and girls—­ice-cream and sponge-cake are superior to roast-beef and potatoes.