A LITTLE GIRL'S VIEW OF LIFE IN A HOTEL. I'm only a very little girl, but I think I have just as much right to say what I want to about things as a boy. I hate boys, they're so mean; they grab all the strawberries at the dinner-table, and never tell us when they're going to have any fun. Only I like Gus Rogers. The other day Gus told me he was going to let off some fireworks, and he let Bessie Nettle and me go and look at them. All of us live in a hotel, and his mother's room has a window with a balcony, and it was there we had the fireworks, right on the balcony. His mother had gone out to buy some creme de lis to put on her face, and he'd went and got eleven boxes of lucifer matches, and ever so many pieces of Castile soap; he stealed them from the housekeeper. Just when she was going to put them in her closet, Gus went and told her Mrs. Nettle wanted her directly a minute, and while she was gone he grabbed the soap and the matches, and when she came back we watched her, and she got real mad, and she scolded Delia, that's the chambermaid, and said she knowed she did it; and I was real glad, because when I was turning somersets on my mother's bed, the other day, Delia slapped me, and she said she wasn't going to make the bed two times to please me; then Bessie and me sticked the matches in the soap like tenpins, and Gus fired them off, and they blazed like anything, and they made an awful smell, and Gus went and turned a little of the gas on so's his mother would think it was that. We get our dinner with the nurses, 'cause the man that keeps the hotel charges full price for children if they sit at the table in the big dining-room. Once my mother let me go there with her, and I talked a heap at the table, and a gentleman that sat next to us said "little girls should be seen and not heard." The mean old thing died last week and I was real glad, and I told Delia so, and she said if I went and said things like that, I couldn't go to heaven; much she knows about it. I wouldn't want to go if dirty things like she went there. Yesterday Mary, our nurse, told Bessie Nettle's nurse, that she heard Larry Finnegan was going to marry her. Larry is one of the waiters, and he saves candies for me from the big dining-room. And Bessie Nettle's nurse said, "O Lord! what a lie!" and Bessie Nettle went in her mother's room, and her little brother said she nipped him, and Bessie said, “O Lord! what a lie!" and you should have heard how her mother did talk to her, and went and shut her up in a dark room where she kept her trunks, and didn't let her have nothing but bread and water, and Gus Rogers went and yelled through the keyhole, and said, 'Bessie, the devil is coming to fetch you," and Bessie screamed and almost had a fit, and her mother told Mrs. Rogers, and got Gus licked, and Gus says he's a good mind to set the house on fire some day and burn her out. One day I went in the parlor, and creeped under a sofa, and there wasn't anybody there. They don't let dogs or children go in the parlor, and I think its real mean—and I creeped under the sofa, so's nobody could see me; and Mr. Boyce came in and Miss Jackson. I don't like Miss Jackson; she said one day childrens was a worse nuisance than dogs was. And Mr. Boyce and Miss Jackson came and sitted down on the sofa, and he said, "O Louisa, I love you so much," and then he kissed her. I heard it smack. And she said, "O Thomas, I wish I could believe you; don't you never kiss anybody else?" and he said, "No, dearest," and I called out, "Oh, what a big story, for I saw him kiss Bessie Nettle's nurse in the hall one night when the gas was turned down." Didn't he jump up, you bet-Gus always says you bet—and he pulled me out and tored my frock, and he said, "Oh, you wicked child, where do you expect to go for telling stories?" and I told him, "You shut up, I ain't going anywhere with you." I wish that man would die like the other did, so I do, and I don't care whether he goes to heaven or not. Gus Rogers' mother had a lunch party in her parlor, and they had champagne, and they never gave him any, and when his mother wasn't looking he founded a bottle half full on the sideboard, and he stealed it and took it in our nursery, and Mary wasn't there, and Gus and me drinked it out of the glass Mary brushes her teeth in, and it was real nice, and we looked in Mary's wardrobe and finded her frock she goes to church in, and Gus put it on, and Mary's bonnet, too, and went in the hall, and we tumbled down and tored Mary's frock, and made my nose bleed, and Gus said, “Oh, there's a earthquake," 'cause we couldn't stand up, and you should see how the house did go up and down, awful; and Gus and me laid down on the carpet, and the housekeeper picked me up and tooked me to my mother, and my mother said, "Oh my, whatever have you been doing?" and I said, "Oh my, I drinked champagne out of Gus Rogers' mother's bottle in the glass Mary brushes her teeth in," and the housekeeper says, Oh my goodness gracious! that child's as tight as bricks," and I said, "You bet, bully for you," and then I was awful sick, and I have forgotten what else. THE BALLAD OF A BUTCHER AND THE DEAR LITTLE CHILDREN. It was a gruesome butcher, With countenance saturnine; He stood at the door of his little shop, The children going by to school They loved to see the sausage machine, The butcher he looked out and in Then horribly he swore, Next yawned, then, smiling, he licked his chops; "Now here's all these dear little children, Some on 'em might live to be sixty; Why shouldn't I save 'em the trouble to wunst An' chop 'em up slipperty licksty?" So he winked to the children and beckoned them in: 66 'Oh, don't ye's want some candy? But ye see ye'll have to come in to the shop, For out here it isn't handy!" He 'ticed them into the little shop, The machine went round and round; And when those poor babes came out again, UP-HILL.-CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI. Does the road wind up-hill all the way? Yes, to the very end. Will the day's journey take the whole long day? From morn to night, my friend. But is there for the night a resting-place? A roof for when the slow dark hours begin? Shall I meet other wayfarers at night? Then must I knock, or call when just in sight? Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak? Will there be beds for me and all who seek? THE LETTER OF MARQUE.-CAROLINE F. Orne. We had sailed out a Letter of Marque, And a costly freight our gallant barque Was bearing home again. We had ranged the seas the whole summer-tide, "A sail! a sail on the weather bow! Hand over hand, ten knots an hour!" Now God defend it ever should end That we should fall in the foeman's power!" 'Twas an English frigate came bearing down, Riding the waves that sent their spray Every stitch of our canvas set, Like a frightened bird òur good barque flew; The wild waves lashed and the foam crests dashed, As we threaded the billows through. The night came down on the waters wide,- "By Heaven's help we'll see home once more," Our captain cried, "for nor-nor-west Lies Cape Cod Light, and the good old shore." Showed the frigate close on our track,- Shall we fall a prize to-night? The Shoal of George's lies sou-south-east, Hard up the helm was jammed. Trained eye and hand in danger's school. "Heave the lead!" The lead was hove; Sharp and short the quick reply; Steady rose the captain's voice, Dark fire glowed his swarthy eye; Right on the Shoal of George's steered, Urged with wild, impetuous force, Lost, if on either side we veered But a hand's breadth from our course. On and on our good barque drove, Leaping like mad from wave to wave, Hissing and roaring 'round her bow, Hounding her on to a yawning grave. God! 'twas a desperate game we played! White as the combing wave grew each cheek; Our hearts in that moment dumbly prayed, For never a word might our blenched lips speak. On and on the frigate drove, Right in our track, close bearing down; Our captain's face was still and stern, Every muscle too rigid to frown. |