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Show : ! ...Our Boys and Girls... EDITED BY AUNT BUSY. . ' This department is conducted solely in the inter-'stR inter-'stR of our girl and boy readers. Aunt Husy Is glad to hear any time from the juVces i'lid nophpws wlio read this pag, and to give thorn all the advice and help in her power. Write on one Hide of the paper only. Io :iot have letters too lone. Original stories and v?rses will bo gladly received -tnd carefully edited. ' The manuscripts of contribution? rot accepted will be returned. Address al! .letter to Aunt Busy. Intermountain (Rtholic, Salt Lake City. AUNT BUSY HAS HER SAY. Dear Nieces and Xophmvs: Aunt Busy heard of a delightful visit some of her nieces and neph-. neph-. ws enjoyed last week in City Creek canyon. Two dear nieces telephoned that they were going to write her two interesting letters next week about the trip, .o Aunt Busy will anxiously' wait for the letters. Aunt Busy heard that the little folks had a i lost enjoyable time and she also heard that two dear nieces, Frances dohnstone and Rose Duffy, nearly . broke their small noses falling1 down a big hill that they climbed, looking for flowers. Rose Duffy had a badly scratched forehead after the excursion and Dranecs Johnstone had a badly cut cheek, but the x iwo dear Krls insisted that Ihey were not hurt at all and had a fine time, so Aunt Busy is happv. Lovingly, AUNT BUSY Little Francois' Cure. The child, pale and feeble, lay stretched on his little white bed and with eyes dilated by fever looked before him with the strange intcntness of the sick, who perceive what the healthy cannot see. His mother, anxious and grief-stricken, stood at the foot of the bed. biting her lips to keep herself from crying, and looking sadly at the havoc wrought by the illness on the poor, thin face of the little boy. The father, an honest artisan, strove hard to restrain his burning tears. Da,r dawned clear and bright, a beautiful June morning forcing its rays of light into the narrow chamber in the Rue de.3 Abbesses, where little Francois, Fran-cois, son of Jasques and Madeleine Legrand, lay dying. He was 7 years old; less than three weeks ago he had been rosy and lively, blithe as a sparrow, but a fever had seized him and they brought him home from school with heavy head tnd hot hands. Sinoe then he had lain in his bed. and. sometimes, looking at the -well-polished little shoes carefully placed in a corner by his mother, he would cry out in his delirium: Tou may throw them away. Little Lit-tle Francois "will ncrer put on his shoes again! He will eo no more to school never any more!" "Do you -want anything, Francois P asked his mother. Xo; nothing.'' ''We must draw him out of this, said the doe-tor; doe-tor; ''this ptupor makes me uneasy. You are his father and mother and should kno-w him well Find out Trhai -will revive him. and bring him back to eArth," and with this he went aTray. Jacques Legrand brought Francois pictures, gilt soldiers, shadow puzzles; he cut them out, put them on the bed, and made them dance before the little one's -wandering eyes, trying to make him laugh or even smile, though himself feeling more like crying. cry-ing. "Would yon like A little pistol, some marbles, or a crossbow V "No," repeated the little voice; and to everything every-thing they said to the dancing jack and balloons they promised him he replied "No, no." '"Then -what do you -want, Francois P asked his mother; 'There is surely something you would like. Tell mother," and she whispered into his ear as if it were a secret. At last little Francois sat up in bed and stretched out his arms, saying in a wistful, yet imperative voice, "I want Boum-Boum!" Cm the father's rough face was a smile both happy and astonished, like the smile of a convict who sees before him a faint hope of release. Boum-Boum! How well he remembered that ; matinee on Easter Monday, when he had taken Francois to the circus. He could still hear the boy's outburst of joy and his amused laughter when the clown, in spangles of gold, with huge, many colored, sparkling butterfly wings on his back, cut a few capers in the ring, tripped up a performer, nr threw up to the chandelier some soft felt hats which he caught adroitly on his head, where thev formed a pyramid, and who, at each trick, each piece of buffoonery, uttered the same cry, accompanied accom-panied bv the rumble of the orchestra "Bouni-Boum!" "Bouni-Boum!" Each time he performed the audience burst out into applause, and Francois laughed heartily. So it was this Boum-Boum, the clown, little Francois wanted to see. That evening Legrand bought his son a jointed clown covered with spangles. The boy looked at the toy, glittering on the white counterpane, then said, sadly: 'ItV not Boum-Boum! I do want to see Boum-Boum V Ah! if only Jacques could have wrapped him up and carried him away to the circus, there to" show him the clown dancing under the bright lights! He did better, however he went to the circus, asked for the clowns address, and with legs trembling from nervousness, entered the house of the artist in Montmarlre. "I have come to ask a most unusual thing. I beg your pardon, sir, but it is for my little hoy's -ake.' Such a dear little chap, sir; always top of his class, except in sums. But he is a dreamer, and a proof of that is " Jacques stammered and hesitated; then, summing sum-ming his courage, said boldly: "The truth is that he wants to see you. sir; he thinks onlv of you, as of a star which he wants to have." " r , , When he had finished the father was pale and his brow wet. He did not dare to look at the clown, who was standing with his eyes fixed on the workman. work-man. "Where do yon live?'' asked Boum-Boum. "O, quite near! In the Rue des Abbesses.' "Come along then. Your boy wants to see Boum-Boum ? Well, he is going to see him !" When the door opened before the clown Jacques Legrand cried joyously to his son: "Xow you'll he happy, Francois. Look. Here is Boum-Boum!" The child looked up with a glad face. He raised himelf on his mother's arm and turned his head toward the two men, looked for a moment at the , entleman k-side his father and searched the kind face which smiled at him, but which he did not LnBut when-thev said. "This is Boum-Bonm," he fell back slowly and sadly on the pillow, with fixed eves staring beyond him. . "No." said the boy, in a disconsolate voice, no ibis is not Boum-Boum." i t The clown standing bcMde the little bed. lookcc . down gravely and with an infinite tenderness at t r iuTn.-, y x l r t . r . lst . , ttr i:rT the face of the little sufferer. He nodded hi3 head, looked at the anxious father and grief -stricken mother, said, smiling, "He is quite right; this is not Boum-Boum,"' and went -away, v "I shall never sec Boum-Boum again," repeated the little son, who was now talking in a vacant way; "perhaps Boum-Boum will be there where I am going go-ing soon." . But suddenly scarcely half an hour since the clown had left him the door opened, and there, in his tights and spangles, the yellow tuft of hair on his head, the gilt butterfly on his back, a great smile, like the slot of a money box, on his jolly, powdered face, stood Boum-Boum the real Boum-Boum; Boum-Boum; Boum-Boum of the circus; the favorite of the people, little Francois' Boum-Boum! On his little white bed the child clapped his thin little hands, the joy of life in his eyes, laughing, happy, and saved, srying out : "Bravo! It is Boum-Boum this time! Dear Boum-Boum! Long live Boum-Boum! Good day, Boum-Boum !" When the doctor returned later on he found seated at Francois' bedside a clown with a white face, who was making the little chap laugh agaiu. As he stirred a piece of sugar in a gla-ss of medicine, medi-cine, the clown said: . "Now, you know, if vou don't drink this, little Francois. Boum-Boum will never come again!" And the child drank it. "Doctor," said the clown to the physician, "don't be jealous. It seems to me that my grimaces do him as much good as your prescriptions." The father and mother were crying, but this time it was from joy. Until little Francois was able to walk again a carriage stopped every day before the workman's house in the Rue des Abbesses, and a man with a comical powdered face got out, wrapped in a long overcoat, with the collar turned up, and under it j a circus costume. ''What can we give you, siri" said Jacques Legrand. Le-grand. at last, when Francois had his first walk; "for we certainly owe you much." The clown held out his large, strong hands to the parents. "A handshake!" said he. From the French of Jules Clarctie. |