Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 Part 8

PONTOTOC, MISSISSIPPI.

I see most of your little correspondents live in the far North and West, and I thought you might like to hear from a little Southern girl, who likes YOUNG PEOPLE very much. I am nine years old. I have no sister, and but one brother. My papa is a doctor, and is often from home; so when Buddie and I are at school, mamma is alone. I love to go to school. I have two cats--Muldrow and Dumpie. I will write about our beautiful birds next time.

D. R. H.

RIDLEY PARK, PENNSYLVANIA.

I am trying to collect a cabinet of curiosities, and have quite a lot of things already. I have pieces of celebrated foreign buildings, English street-car tickets, Lake George diamonds, the rattle of a rattle-snake, and other things.

I think the "Letter from a Land Turtle" is very interesting. I had a young water turtle that I could cover with a two-cent piece. I saw a very funny ants' bed the other day. It was an oyster sh.e.l.l, with the edges all covered with sand, except on one place, where the ants went in. I think it must have been a very cozy house.

Will you please tell me something about the habits of ants?

C. B. F.

AUBURN, NEW YORK.

I have no pets, but we have a nice flower garden. One of the boy correspondents of YOUNG PEOPLE asked if we had ever seen a tarantula, or California spider. We have one five or six inches long, preserved in alcohol. My uncle sent it to us from Nevada. He says the webs are so strong that people use them for thread.

BERTIE S.

I would like to exchange pressed wild flowers with some little girl living in the East. I would like some small bouquets for a sc.r.a.p-book. We have a great variety of beautiful wild flowers here. I have one sister and two brothers. My pet is a sheep. She will leave the herd to come to me. She eats bread, and tobacco too, when the shepherd gives it to her. Her name is Susie.

MABEL SHARP, Buchanan, Fresno County, California.

NEW YORK CITY.

I am a great admirer of Shakspeare. I have just finished reading _Macbeth_. I have seen Edwin Booth play Hamlet. My mother has read aloud to me _King Richard III_. and many others of these plays. I am also very fond of history. I first read _Peter Parley's Universal History_, next d.i.c.kens's _Child's History of England_, and since many other books of historical tales. I am now reading Guizot's _Popular History of France_. There are six large volumes, and I have finished the third volume to-day.

I think you will be interested to hear about my Bible. It is the elegant "Illuminated Bible" which was "published by Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff Street," just before the fire, which destroyed all the plates of "sixteen hundred historical engravings." I read in it every Sunday, and almost every morning. I have read the Old Testament in course to the end of Chronicles, and I am pretty familiar with the rest of the Bible.

I was paralyzed when I was sixteen months old, and have not the use of my right hand. As yet I can not write well with my left. I am twelve years old.

S. Ca.s.sIUS E.

JERSEY CITY, NEW JERSEY.

My sister Gertie and I had each a small turtle. They were kept in a gla.s.s globe in the house all winter, and about a week ago we put them out in the yard in a large pan. To-day, when I went out to see them, mine was dead. Can anyone tell me what was the matter with it? They both had plenty of raw meat and earth-worms. The water was changed every day, and there were large stones for them to crawl up upon. We put the other turtle back in the gla.s.s globe in the house.

MAMIE E.

Turtles prefer to bury themselves in the mud, and sleep all winter.

Perhaps had you allowed your turtle to follow its natural instincts, it would not have died.

PROVINCETOWN, Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

I am seven years old. I want to tell all the boys who read YOUNG PEOPLE that I live where they catch those big whales. My uncle goes in a vessel after them. He has killed nine this spring. The largest one was over sixty feet long, and made fifty barrels of oil. They shoot the whales with a bomb-lance.

FREDDIE R. A.

BENTON, ILLINOIS.

I take YOUNG PEOPLE, and I think it is a very interesting paper. I am living in Benton now, and very soon I will have a little dog, a lamb, and a pig. Some of you that live up North will think a pig is a very strange pet; and yet when you think that the pig is white and clean, then perhaps you would like him better. Perhaps I shall have a canary-bird and a kitten, but I am not sure.

To-morrow I am going to see somebody weave a carpet. I have to study history and French every day except Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. I like to study them when they are easy enough.

LILIAN MCD.

JANESVILLE, WISCONSIN.

I found hepaticas on the 7th of April, and anemones a little later. Violets, shooting-stars, Solomon's-seal, wild geranium, and jack-in-the-pulpit are in blossom now (May 14), as well as other wild flowers. I have seen woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, orioles, lots of robins and blue jays, brown thrushes, and bluebirds. When I was going out in the yard this morning I saw several chipmunks.

ALICE C. L.

PROSPERITY, SOUTH CAROLINA.

I live down in "Dear old South Carolina." We have a nice flower garden, and there are plenty of flowers in blossom already. It has been very warm this winter. I did not start to wearing shoes till nearly Christmas, and I pulled them off again on my birthday, which was the 4th of March.

My father is an editor, and we get a great many papers to read. I am very much interested in "Across the Ocean." I used to live up in the snow, on the banks of the Potomac.

J. W. H.

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

I live in the city, but I have got some chickens, and am very much interested in them. I have raised some; but there is an old cat that has eaten eleven of them, and I can not kill her. I have pigeons too, and have raised a good many. I read a letter in YOUNG PEOPLE No. 13 from a little boy who hatched a chicken by putting the egg in ashes. I wish he would tell me how he kept the egg warm.

HENRY W.