OUR YOUNG FOLKS.

An Illustrated Magazine

FOR BOYS
BOYS AND GIRLS.

No. VI.

That's Round-the-World Joe, just coming on the front porch with Charley Sharpe. He 's getting very fond of calling at our house of late, Joe is; and he always comes in that style, sometimes whistling, but generally singing some sort of a sea-song, with a "Bonny Kate," or a "Charming Kitty," or a "Kathleen Mavourneen" (but that 's not a sea-song), or a "Kitty, the Clipper," in it. Some days he informs the whole neighborhood, he hollers that he

So,

"Sailed in the good ship The Kitty,

With a smart spanking gale and rough sea";

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by TICK NOR AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

and at another time (for as much as a week, maybe) he seems to want everybody in our block to know that

"In a vessel of his own he has often ta'en a trip,
And he christened her The Charming Kitty.
Though not quite so big as a three-masted ship,
Yet she looked, when at sea, quite as pretty."

Now, that sort of thing was all very well for the jovial tars in the "fokesel"
of the Circumnavigator on a Saturday night, when "the ample can adorned
the board," and the Tarry Mariners, prepared to see it out, gave each the
girl that he adored, and pushed the grog about; but I must say it is not
exactly the right kind of noise to raise around the premises of temperance
folks, or to wake all the babies with in an old-fashioned, quiet neighborhood,
where the families are large, and the houses are small. Besides, I don't
admire the style, — 'pears to me it 's kind o' making free. Miss Catharine
Eager, though she is only ten years old, and can't play on the accordion, is
nobody's Poll, nor yet their Partner, Joe; and, if she is your Friend, that 's
not saying she's your Pitcher. So I just up and asked her about it.
"If
you don't like it, Katy," says I, "only say the word, and I 'll stop the music
or change the tune."

"Well, now," says she, "dear old humbug, I like to hear Mr. Brace sing; I don't want him to stop singing. I don't care whether the person in the song is named Bonny Kate, or Dowdy Bet, or Crazy Peggy; and if you make him stop, I'll ask him to begin again, exactly where he left off, and perform them all over and over again,

the one that said

the way they grind 'em on the hand-organs. Why, I think it's real nice, the way Mr. Brace does it, — so sentimental, you know, and funny. It always puts me in mind of the gentleman we saw in the Nautical Drama at Barnum's, with his pantaloons so dilapidated looking, and his shirt so baggy, and his throat so exposed, — the one, you remember, who kept scraping his foot, and jerking it backwards, as if a great many heavy things were trying to fall on his toes, and flirting his straw hat around, and giving it a sort of a streaky sling every time he jerked his foot, as if he had just run in out of a soaking rain, and his legs and his hat were all dripping, 'Avast heaving!' (whatever that is) so many times, and called everybody in good clothes Your Honor,' and seemed to be so anxious to get his timbers shivered, and always clapped his hand on his mouth when he said bad words, as if he had left his mouth open by accident, and the bad word had tried to jump out like a rat, the one that expressed that lovely sentiment that made all the people clap their hands, and stamp, and bang with their sticks, and whistle, and cry Hi, hi!' about the Man that will not answer the Signals of a Female in Distress, and Lay himself, Broadside on, to her Enemy, no matter how Many Guns he carries, is a Sneak, whom it is Perfectly Ridiculous to call a Coward. O, was n't that lovely? And then, you remember, he sang that sweet distressing ballad about the Fleet that was all Moored, and how Blackeyed Seeusan came on board to inquire where she could find her True Love,

'Tell me, ye Jovial Sailors, tell me true,

Does my Sweet William sail among your crew?

or words to that effect. And how her Sweet William was in the yard, rocking something; and as soon as he heard her well-known voice, he jumped down, quick as lightning, exclaiming, 'Seeusan, Seeusan, Lovely Dear!' and requesting her to let him Kiss off that Falling Tear, which I suppose she did (and no harm either, both of 'em being so fond of each other, and so miserable), because, afterwards, when the Bos'n (whatever that is) gave the Dreadful Word (sailors are always giving dreadful words in the Nautical Dramas, it seems to me), she sighed, and he hung his head, and they both kissed, - being so fond of each other, and so unhappy; and then she cried Good By,' — no, 'Adieu!' because it was all done in poetry,— and Waved her Lily Hand; and it did n't say what became of either of them after that. But it was all Per-fect-ly Splen-did, and I had a real good cry."

"But," says I again,

Joe?"

"what has all that to do with Round-the-World

"Why, you see,” said Katy, "I could n't help thinking of Mr. Brace all the while; because, you know, he follows the sea; and on the Fourth of July the Circumnavigator has Streamers Waving in the Wind; and his name might have been William, if it had n't been for old Captain Brace being a Joseph, and Mrs. Brace being so proud of him, and thinking there never could be too many Joseph Braces; and then he sings sea-songs, which I suppose Sweet William must have been doing all the time, when he was n't crying or avast-heaving."

Now there's a pretty reason for letting Joe Brace make a Naval Warbler of himself, and a nuisance besides. But, bless these women! they 're all alike. When you let one of 'em get by you in a subject, you never can tell where she 'll come out. They're like that pig that Leigh Hunt tells about, that slipped the string off its hind leg in Smithfield Market; the boy that had been trying to drive or coax it just slapped his hat down on the ground, and began to pull his hair and cry, and said it wor n't no use a-tryin' to foller her; he knowed she 'd bolt up all manner o' streets."

But there's one thing I can't find out, and another thing I think I have found out.

What makes her call Joe Mister Brace?

Now, there's Charley Sharpe, he 's every bit as old as Joe; and, though he's not so tall by about a quarter of a head, he 's a sight stouter. Joe says he's built on the porpoise model; and some of the boys call him "Fatty," - behind his back though, mind you; for Charley's apt to be rather quick with his fists when his dignity's stirred up. And Katy has known Joe quite as long as she has known Charley; but she never calls Charley Mister Sharpe: it's always just "Charley," or sometimes "Cousin Charley," - kind of affectionate, though he 's no relation to her. Queer, is n't it?

Once I asked her, "Sis, what do you call Round-the-World Joe Mister Brace for? Don't you like him?”

"Why, what an i-dee-a!" says she. "Of course I like him; that is, he 'll do. But the i-dee-a of calling a person Joe who has seen a Whale, and, for all I know, the Sea-Serpent, and the next thing to a Mermaid, a person who has 'scudded,' and been on his 'beam-ends,' and 'under bare poles,' and all those other dreadful things he has told us about, -a person who just keeps all the time sailing up and down among dangers, as if there was n't a soul on all the dry land to love him, or be anxious about him, or wish he 'd come back, and so he did n't care how soon he went down, Down, Down! a person who, night after night, goes to sleep like that poor sailor-boy in the Piece that one of our school-girls recited, who dreamed he was at home:

'The white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be,
And winds, in the midnight of winter, thy dirge !'

"Joe!" says she, "Joe! Yes, I'd look pretty calling him Joe, would n't I?" And then she began to cry; and I kissed her, and said: “There now, sis! don't cry; I did n't mean to hurt your feelings, but I'm always making a heartless hippopotamus of myself"; and at that she laughed, and I said she would look pretty calling him Joe, or anything else she pleased.

And, My Gracious! don't it just take my sister Kate to look pretty!

Maybe you think I should n't say so, right out, in print too, to all sorts of Young Folks, perfect strangers to me, and me her brother; but I say that 's all humbug. What's the use of being brother to a nice pretty girl, just as pretty in all her ways as she is in her face, if you can't admire and love her like sixty, and brag about her too? Who has any better right than I have to hurrah for my sister? And what's the use of being a fellow's pretty sister if it's against the rules for him to hurrah for you? — especially if you're right sensible, and won't take on airs and be conceited on account of it?

Besides, it's not poetry, it's a good-looking matter-of-fact, and just as easy to prove as two and two make four. Here's her carte-de-visite, as she

appeared; and if any Young - Folks boy thinks he's got a sister that's prettier than that, all he 's got to do is to send along her tin-type to "George Eager," care of the Editor; and, if it 's so, I'll own right up, stick her tintype in Bonny Kate's Album, and send her a Valentine next Fourteenth of February.

But as to a fellow's bragging about his own sister,-why, there's Captain Brace, Round-the-World Joe's Old Man, -modest as my own little darling about himself; but don't he hug Mrs. Brace right before folks, - Young Folks or old folks, and laugh a big, fat, red, warm, Christmas-dinner sort of laugh, and say, "If this be n't the nicest, jolliest, best-looking woman in these latitudes, why, then I 'm prejudiced!"

Now that's what I call rational talk. I believe in the Old Man, because he believes in the Good Man, and that 's his way of showing it.

But that Mister Brace is the thing, I can't find out, because I think even Kate has not found out the true reason for it yet. And here's the thing I think I have found out; and I'm going to tell you in strict confidence. (Cross your heart you won't tell!)

MISS CATHARINE EAGER IS ENGAGED TO JOSEPH BRACE, JR., ESQ., MARINER. They have exchanged tin-types and locks of hair, and torn a three-cent stamp between them (breaking a sixpence is the regular tender, true-love style; but they thought it would n't pay to wait for the Resumption of Spe