“There is Emily,” she was saying, “and there is father with a shovel; and this one is me, and that is Jerry, and that’s Oscar, carrying a basket.  I guess they ’re going to dig potatoes.  O, what lots of houses over the other side of the pond; and there ’s one, two, three, five, ten, eight meeting-houses, too.  It must be Boston, I guess, there are so many houses there.  And there’s a great boat coming—­O what a smoke it makes!—­and it’s got wheels, too.  Now we’ll get right into it, and go and see Uncle Henry and all the folks.  Stop, stop, you boat!  Now that’s too bad—­it goes by, and we can’t go to Boston.”

[Illustration:  Mary and the Picture-Book.]

Thus little Mary continued to talk to the pictures and to herself, unconscious that any one was listening to her.  She was a pretty child, and, all unknown to herself, she made almost as attractive a picture as any in her book, with her fair face, her flowing hair, and her clean dress, set off by the green grass and climbing vines around her.  Oscar sat listening to her childish prattle for some time, when the striking of the kitchen clock reminded him that he had been seated at the desk an hour, and had not yet written a dozen lines.  He was about to tear up the sheet of paper over which he had sat (but not labored) so long, and give up the attempt.  Then he thought of his promise to write, and how ashamed he should feel to have his uncle’s folks know that he had tried a whole hour, and could not write a letter to his own mother.  He finally determined to make one more attempt.

Finding that the sound of Mary’s voice disturbed him, Oscar now shut down the window, and thus cut off all communication with the outer world, except by the eye.  He soon got under way again with his letter, and, to his own surprise, he went along quite easily and with considerable rapidity.  The reason of this was, he was now really in earnest, and had given his mind wholly to the letter.  Before, his thoughts were flitting from one trifle to another; now they were directed to the object he wished to accomplish.  Before the clock struck the next hour, the letter was finished, sealed, and directed.  It was quite a respectable sort of a letter, too.  When he had got through, Oscar was himself surprised to find that he could write so good an epistle.  The spelling, punctuation, and penmanship might have been improved, but in other respects the letter was creditable to him.  I will print it as he intended it should read, and not precisely as he wrote it: 

“BROOKDALE, June 15, 185—.

“DEAR MOTHER: 

“I suppose you are looking for a letter from me, and I meant to have written before this, but somehow I have neglected it.  I got here safe the next day after I left home.  We stopped one night in Portland, and put up at the ——­ Hotel.  The next day we rode in the cars all the forenoon, and in the stage all the afternoon.  The stage does not go within five miles of uncle’s, but