OCR Text |
Show jur Boys and Girls... EDITED BY AUNT BUSY. i ,h)s apartment Is conducted solely In the Inter- ( J 0f our srirl and boy readers. ' ' A'J-it Bl'sy ,S g,ai1 hear any timo from th i :ml nephews who read this page, and to give I.'ri a J! '-h'- advice and help in her power. ' VrU'"' n pne F,(3e ' t)e PaPer only, no rot have letters too lone. Oriri-ial stories and verses will be gladly received ,id rr.rrfuV.y edited. " jhe manuscripts of contributions not accepted will I he returned. I lrs a" letters to Aunt Busy. Intermountain I rattT0liryn1t Lnke City. ' AUNT BUSY'S EASTER GREETING. I TV-ar Nifvs find Nephews: Aunt Busy ox-I ox-I .rllfji hfft wishes for a happy Easter tide to all the I (jr'ar pirls ""i boys who call her "auntie." Happi-I Happi-I r're? term? bo easy during' the beautiful spring days, I 'pj) t'v g'Wious feast of the Resurrection is eel-I eel-I f hrated. Of course, all the dear children already 1 trulv n',ZP "hat the pxcat feast means. Aunt i pufV remembers when she was a little gir, oh so Ionc afn- lnnt she believed the sun danced on Eas-;rr Eas-;rr niTiii'ip. and she was always up very early 1o top tb' 'ii. .von may be sure. There are many-lit - t"p rliilren in the world today who have the faith I of Aur.t Busy's childhood days, and'oti Easter morn ! tjjP entire world seems to dance with happiness. the cominp Easter tides brinp only happi-! happi-! j.fSS to Aunt Busy's dear children is the wish of lov-j lov-j T(:-nd AUNTIE BUSY. LETTERS AND ANSWERS. lVar Aunt Busy: 1 am sending you some Eas- 1 -r eccrs. 1 bope you will like them. Your fond ! ro.r. FRANCES MA LIN. Aunt- Busy is very thankful, dear little niece, for i .ijp pretty Easter epps. She thinks them all very i rem", particularly the one with the blue flowers. l 1 EASTER TIME. I The iitiV flowers came through the ground. I At Kr.ster lime, at Easter time; They raided their heads and looked around. At hiippy Easter time. And every pretty hud did say, (to.mI jienple, bless this holy day. For ( hrit is risen, the angels say. At li.Tppy Easter time." I The j'ure white lily raised its cup I At KnsTer time, at Easter time; Tin' crocus to the sky looked up. I At happy Easter time. We'll hear the song of heaven,'' they say, glory shines on us today; Oil. may it hinc on us alway. At ii'T.v Easter time!'' "!V;is l..ng and long and long ago. That Kaster time, that Easter time; ;;t stiil the pure white lilies blow, 5 A? happy Easter time. And still each little flower doth say. ; -i;.-od Christians, bless this holy day, l "rr Christ is risen, the angels say. At Messed Easter time."' i LTTTLE STEVE. Concluded from Last Week. i -ovp closod his eyes and lay back. At first the I j-r sppmed too much for him. "Oh, sir!"' was all he rriu'i -av. "Net sir. Steve, hut daddy," said John Grain-T;tKiner Grain-T;tKiner one of Steve's thin hands and crushing l.t1ropn J's OWn. 7 lien lr. llcys came in and smiled at them, and I r' t-tvo Sisters came up and looked and smiled and j '"' t.ut.v; atid during the rest of the visit neither I S-rp in,r John Grainger spoke, but eat hand in ii.hiid. with a bashful delight in each other. Aftr-r three days packed full of the painfully "cr fir.Ticipation. Steve was carried out in his new ta'lipr' arms, with his crutch across his shoulder, slid ?pt in a comfortable old straw chair, in a great 'mpty roofed wagon, smelling deliciously of straw-rnes. straw-rnes. A basket of strawberries was placed in his 'rp. and John Grainger, sitting just under the till ' 'i wagon, drove Dobbin at a walking pace thro a'- dwrv milns of streets, i; ' Rut at last they passed the last row of squalid clings, and the last of the brickfields, and came -at fcmong fields; and then Dobbin broke into, a I-'f-ady trot, niid the air grew purer and sweeter, and 'irro were wide fields and woods, and sometimes l-i'id a bridge over a stream, or they went 'r.-nupi, village of the most delightful cottages, riw.--r.-. in ro-es. I , It wa all more exquisite than Steve could have I r, () ,;nri though he had listened greedily to I " ta ,,f happy children who had gone on Sun-I Sun-I '' y-.i"-. treats into the country. I t Ahn-.ii 4 r.Vlnck in the afternoon they reached ; ' r crtr :urr. , f Steve's dreams, and he was set down :i' 'hr' i:"l" flagged yard, while Dobbin was taken j ' ;' at; 1 T i'iiod into his own paddock, and Trusty I ' snie f-Tid j;t;,j 1,1; 10a(j on St eve's knee. 'Ih- trettc-d sr,rp '""hen little Willie was taken." tSd -T - 7 ;rnir,cer, watching the dog. I Af-f-nvard- he carried Steve into the cottage I M-tt.r-e him in the chimney corner began to I '- fire and boil the kettle for tea. j , ".l h. all this, lad, i' days to come, an' mak I -'-p tay v , ;, Dobbin an' me turns the corner o' th' s . v" ve was looking about him in bewildered ;-fdr-.--. The birds were singing in the little cot- fc-rden without, and there was a ?Teepy hum I ' ihe cottage was flooded through its i r' :! " w:th sunshine and warmth. Steve felt I " had died and wakened up in heaven, j ,f' ; he lays to come to be rcallv like this? I fc'Tf' 1 ''!a;i!grr had boiled a generous supply of f ' : i.1 hIo the tea hot, strong and sweet, and I ;J :i "::r, ,,f iT, with a great slab of home-made ;-'8!i- " - with honey, before Steve. All the time I K - vi iy Mnilir.g to himself. . v' ' - . - though Willie were come back," he t ;8'd jit "It was lonely here this goodish while TarK;' K. harine Tvnan." in the Catholic Weekly, J . , .. "Knockwood." 1 . ' r are you and Yiftrinia going?" Annie ''M.ed. when she and her sister met the. P,-'v ,:"v pirls "n Connecticut avenue, near the I to "XVv" '""''"'UP Twentieth street to carry j I'-;,, , Cousin Sallic, who has a bad cold. rp :ir" poing?" tor a Walk; mamma insists that we must. 'R'" uVi"or exercise ever'v day, unless it is very ,,''r!1!. We i10Ufrht we'd go' to Dupont Circle- rr. alway8 RO many dear itte babieS there ; "ir nurses. Come'. on and go with us." .'"i fraid it will he too far for Dorothy." ir- '6 'plicd. "She twisted her ankle last winter. u suiaetUiicB sets lame if she tries it. We ara going home bv the wnv r,f u . n ,iqot tu Art,- i y ot the avenue, so as to walk past the i White House; maybe we'll see Air. or Airs. Koosevelt. Just think- T u , . 7 tl,r i lve been in Washington them yet." d 1 seen either of ,r,C norT tllemi' and rve see th boys, too," cried Dorothy, exultantly ' WflSfVW nt,-le girls had bllt cently come to W, Vn P 11 - llve ,the home having heretofore been in Georg.a: so they were anxious to see even- -thing and everybody of note. " . "You can go there tomorrow; come to the Circle, with us, and then we can stop and ask how vour dffagreJabfeV' 38 She? Mt S "We've never had it; Mammy Chloe says we don t keen still long enough for it to catch us." j M'0d' Dorotby. knock wood, quick!" cried Annie and Alollie at once, and the latter seized Dorothy s hand and led her to a tree near them. , "What tree is this?" yno matter, it's wood; knock it." ' jo Dorothy knocked vigorously on the rough bark of a young elm tree, and then said: 'What sort of game is this?" "Game? It's no game. Don't you know that you must always knock wood when you've ben bragging about anything that you haven't a cold, or grippe, or anything like that? If vou don't, vou 11 he sure to have what you said vou had not had. I s posed everybody knew that!" AIollv explained ex-plained with supercilious airs. She was somewhat too fond of giving information. "Humph! I should think you'd be ashamed to believe in silly things like that just as the colored people down home do," and Virginia tossed her curly head and turned up her little nose, as if she, too, were very wise. Td thank you, Miss Virginia Maury, to bear in mind that you are speaking to someone much older than yourself (Alolly was quoting one of her aunts, but of course Virginia did not know it) "what's the matter?" . The question was caused by a slight scream from Dorothy, as Virginia apparently just saved hershelf from falling on her face. b ! Was it a snake ?" Dorothy cried in alarni. and drew her skirts close around her. "Washington parks don't have snakes running loose in them no park but the Zoo. of course. Did you stub your toe, Virginia?" and as Annie spoke, she tried to help the child stand. 'No! no! Don't! I've lost sight oh, here it is!" And so saying, Virginia dug from a crack in the asphalt walk a dull, crooked brass pin, and held it triumphantly aloft, adding "See a pin and pick it up, Throughout the day you'll have good luck, See a pin and let it lay, You'll have bad luck the live-long day." "I wouldn't have missed that pin for anything; for if I had, I just know grandfather would forget the rubber bands he promised to bring us from the office." "Well, upon my word!" Mollie exclaimed, with her grown up air. "If that isn't the most, childish thing I ever heard in all my born days. Talk about, silly things! I'd like to know if you really believe that horrid, dirty old. pin will make your grandfather grand-father remember rubber bands or anything else ?" "Whv, didn't you never hear that before?" ''Indeed, yes; ages ago, when I was a little bit of a thing" (Annie was just eleven), "but auntie explained ex-plained to us that all the 'luck' there was in picking up a nin Avas. that maybe you'd find it sticking in your dress, sometime, when you needed it. I'd throw the dirty thing away if I were you." "No. no, don't throw away your luck, Virginia." Dorothy pleaded, as her sister seemed half inclined to heed Annie's argument. "Humph! If I were you I'd never turn up my nose at knocking wood, for that's different; it's never safe to brag " "How can hitting a tree keep you from having grippe?" asked Dorothy; and Virginia said at the. same time. "If I were as grown up as you think you are, I'd not believe in any silly things." Both Mollie and Annie were quite angry; their faces flushed, and they were on the point of making mak-ing a furious retort, when to their surprise, their grandmother was seen approaching them, having just alighted from a Mount Pleasant car. "How excited you girls look!" she said, glancing at the four flushed faces. "I hope you are not disagreeing." dis-agreeing." Of course, all four began to talk at once, and it Avas some time before Airs. Singleton understood the case. When it was made clear to her she smiled and said : "Annie, and you Mollie. pause a moment and reflect. Do yo.u truly believe that 'knocking wood' can prevent grippe or cold, or any trouble Do you think that God uses such means to protect pro-tect his people?" "N o, not really; it's a kind of make-belieA'e, I reckon," Annie answered showly, and Alollie nodded nod-ded her head in sign of agreement. "Dorothy, how do you and Virginia regard pins ? As God's angels, or " "No, of course not! Only, we've always heard it but s'pose that's a make-believe, too. like lots of things the colored people used to tell us down in Georgia. I never thought about it that way." "Then it is hardly worth while to quarrel over a make-believe, is it? Take these little superstitions supersti-tions merely as jokes and they are harmless; but to put faith in them is un-Christian. Most of them have come down to us from the dark ages, and are now even firmly believed in wherever false Gods are worshiped. It is absurd, if you stop to think of it. for the child of educated Christian people t. believe that picking up a pin will give what we call 'luck,' or that rapping on a bit of senseless wood can have effect on one's health. As for the rubber hands which Virginia hoped the pin might secure her, why, if you will come to my house after aft-er dinner, I will give you a pocket full. My husband hus-band has a great many in his office, and. as they soon become weak with use, he never permits his clerks to use them long, so we have large quantities quanti-ties of them on hand all the time.'" Not only did Virginia get the bands in spite of having thrown away the pin, but she learned that, had she kept it, none of the hoped-for "luck" would have been hers, for her grandfather had. gone hastily to Chicago on a business trip, and had not had time to think of them. Our Young People. |