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    Junction City, Kansas.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I like to read you very much, especially “Under the Lilacs” and “Dab Kinzer.”  I live in Junction City, and have a very pleasant home.  We have a great many wild flowers growing on the prairies.  One of them is called the soap plant.  Our teacher says its name is “Yucca.”  It has long slim leaves with sharp edges, and the flower grows on all sides of the stalk, which sometimes is four feet high:  the flowers are white.  Then we have a sensitive rose.  The rose looks like a round purple silk tassel.  We have lots more of odd flowers, which I will tell you about some other time.—­Yours truly,

    MARY KEYS.

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    Bunker Hill.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  I read an article lately against nicknames and spelling names with “ie,” but I don’t agree with it.  I think when people are grown up their real names look better, but at home, among one’s own friends, a pet name is pretty.  I don’t like to see a nickname in a marriage or death notice, but I do like it for young folks and in the family.  They say it is a French fashion to spell names “ie.”  Whether it is true or not I like it, for all wise people say against it.  I know I am only a little girl, and my opinion may not be worth much, but I mean to stand up for it, whatever they say.  I suppose every one has a right to her own opinion, and if others don’t agree with me, they needn’t; but I don’t like them to call me “silly” because I don’t think as they do.  I am willing they should have their own opinions, but I want the same privilege,—­isn’t that fair?  I don’t like such nicknames as “Tom” and “Bob,” or “Mollie” and “Sallie,” but like such as “Charlie” or “Hattie,” and I think they look prettier spelt so than they do spelt “Charley” or “Hatty.”  If other people like them so, I am willing; but I want the right to follow my own choice in the matter, whether others like it or not.  I think people have a right to spell their own names as they please.—­Your friend,

    ALLIE BERTRAM.

P.S.—­My parents think my name is too pretty to be used so often as to get common, and so they call me “Allie,” and I like it.  I don’t want any one but my friends who love me, and whom I love, to call me “Alma.”

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    DEAR ST. NICHOLAS:  May I tell you about a miniature fountain my
    sister and myself made long ago?  It was lovely when finished, and
    fully repaid us for our labor.

We first chose a board, about four feet long, and two feet wide, on the sides of which we nailed laths, to hold the earth we laid upon it, after having bored two holes, one near the middle and the other close in the corner.  We then placed the board on a box, and set a barrel near it on blocks that stood about a foot higher than the board.

    We now cut a gourd in two, and making holes through the centers,
    fitted them over those in the board, the large one for the
    fountain-basin, the small one for a little spring in the corner.