“Oh, certainly!” cried Davie, “certainly!” beginning to sing.

If you could but have heard that song!  As Davie sang, each fowl or animal took up its part, and sang it, with its own peculiar tone and manner, until they all joined in.

  “I had a horse, and my horse pleased me;
  I tied my horse behind a tree. 
  Horse said, ‘Neigh! neigh!’
  Dog said, ‘Bow-wow!’
  Duck said, ‘Quack! quack!’
  Guinea said, ‘Pot-rack! pot-rack!’
  Hen said, ‘Shinny-shack! shinny-shack!’
  Bird said, ‘Fiddle-diddle-dee!’”

Davie was overjoyed.  He thought he would sing it all over again.  But just then he was sure that his mother called him.

[Illustration:  All in Procession.]

“Wait a minute!” he said to his companions.  “Wait a minute!  I’m coming back!  Oh, it’s just like a fairy-tale!” he cried to himself, as he bounded up the garden-walk.  “I wonder what mother’ll think?”

But his mother said she had not called him, and so he ran back as fast as his legs would carry him.

But they were all gone.  His speller lay on the ground, open at the page of his lesson; a crumb or two of bread was scattered about; but not a sign of the white pony and the rest of the singers.

“Well,” said Davie, as he picked up his book, “I guess I wont sing it again, for I bothered them so.  But I wish they had stayed a little longer.”

THE LETTER-BOX.

A BRAVE GIRL.

One summer day, in Union square, New York City, a beautiful deed was done, which our frontispiece tells so well as almost to leave no need of words.  A poor blind man started to cross the street just as a car was rapidly approaching.  He heard it coming, and, growing confused, stood still—­his poor, blind face turned helplessly, pathetically up, as if imploring aid.  Men looked on heedlessly, regardless of his danger, or the voiceless appeal in his sightless eyes.

Suddenly, from among the passers-by, a young girl sprang to his side, between him and the great horses which were so near they almost touched her, laid her dainty hand on his, and led him safely over the street, and with gentle words that brought a smile to his withered old face, set him safely on his way.

It was a brave, kindly act, and one may be sure it was neither the first nor the last, of the brave girl who did it.

* * * * *

If Charles Dudley Warner had never been a boy, it would have been impossible for him to write the very interesting little volume he calls “Being a Boy,” for it is evident that he knows well, from experience, all that he writes about.  It may be that many of our young readers have seen this book, for it has already reached several editions; but if there are any of them who have not read it, and who take an interest in the life of boys who are born, and brought up, and have fun, and drive oxen, and go fishing, and turn grindstones, and eat pumpkin-pie, and catch wood-chucks, all on a New England farm, they would do well to get the book and read it.