came. Do you suppose that he bought all these things with the five-dollar gold-piece? Nutcracker could not see, of course, but he thought not; for how could he?

Buttons lived up stairs, in a mean little house, in a dirty street. His rooms were small, and they were crowded. There were old Mr. and Mrs. Nutcracker, who never forgot that they had been king and queen, and that Buttons's wife was a shoemaker's daughter, and never remembered that Buttons had returned their cruelty with kindness, and I think were not very nice people to live with. There was Pepin, who had been hurt, poor boy! in escaping from the palace, and who had never risen since from his bed. There was Buttons's pleasant-faced wife; there were three fat children; there was the holly-bush, which had grown into a great tree; and there was - Nutcracker did not know what, but something, he was quite sure, for which he had been searching all his life.

The three fat children seized upon Buttons; one by each hand, and one by his coat-tails.

"Ah!" said Buttons, pretending to groan. "I am so tired. Let the best child look outside of the door, and see what he finds."

The best child opened the door cautiously, half afraid, and set up a shout. "Ma! come quick! here's a chicken, and cranberries, and a paper,—it's raisins!"

"Raisins!" screamed the other children.

"A chicken!" cried old Mrs. Nutcracker.

"Christmas wreaths!" exclaimed his wife, peeping out into the little dark hall. แ "Why, surely, you never—"

"Give me one,"

"Made them? Yes, I did," said Buttons, his eyes dancing. "In the woods. The cedars gave me the boughs for nothing." "Christmas wreaths!" repeated Pepin from his bed. and, seizing it in his thin fingers, "Ah! how nice it smells, like the woods!" he said, laying his pale cheek on it. "I wish I could see a tree once more."

Buttons jumped up, and ran down stairs very fast; and they heard him coming back, dragging something after him, bump, bump! The something rustled and cracked, and filled the room with a strong spicy scent of the woods. Buttons lifted it so that it stood just in front of Pepin's bed. It was a spruce-tree. Its thick, strong branches spread out wide. brushed the ceiling. lived about its roots.

Its top

Birds had built nests in its branches, mosses had It knew all the secrets of the woods and the sky and the rains, and it told you about them, as well as it could, whenever you stirred its branches. The little wife hung the wreaths all about the room, one on every nail, one over each window, one over Pepin, one each on the backs of grandpa's and grandma's chairs. It was getting dark, and the firelight came out, and danced on the ceiling, and on the white cover of the little table. Pepin lay looking at the tree. The children chattered like little birds; even Grandpa and Grandma Nutcracker were smiling. The room was like a spicy, cosey little nest. What was it, Nutcracker wondered

more and more, here and in these people's faces, for which he had labored all his life?

Suddenly Pepin cried out, "O, there is something here hanging on a branch of the tree!"

"Is it possible?" answered Buttons, "then you had better take it down, Pepin."

Pepin took it down." Why, it is for me," he said, looking at the name on

the wrapper.

"Then you

as before.

had better open it," answered Buttons in just the same tone

Pepin untied the string, but his hands shook. "It is square," he said, feeling it. He took off one wrapper. "It is hard," he said again, trembling all over. He took off the second wrapper, and it nearly dropped from his fingers.

"A box of paints !" screamed the children, dancing around.

Pepin tried to speak, but he could not get out a word. He kissed the box, he laughed; but you could see he was near crying. The little wife's eyes were full of tears also.

"Come! come!" said Buttons. "Do people cry over Christmas gifts?" There were no tears in his eyes. He was ready to dance, though now he would have no overcoat. As for Nutcracker, he had a curious tingling sensation all over him, though he was only a copper penny; and happening to look towards the hearth, he saw Santa Claus. The old fellow had tied up his reindeer, and slipped down the chimney, and was winking hard, and wiping his eyes, while pretending to blow his nose.

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I have it! I have got it, and know what it is!" cried Nutcracker, at the top of his lungs. "Every leaf on the holly-bush grew out of a kind thought; the Christmas spirit lives here all the year round, and these people love each other, and are happy. That is what I never had at home, happiness; that is what my money could not buy. That is why I was every day trying to make more money, always hoping to make money enough to buy it." Should you not think that Buttons would have been very much frightened to hear such a voice coming out of his pocket? No doubt he would, only, in some mysterious way, Nutcracker found himself on his legs again, and he was walking as fast as he could, with a pocketful of money, to buy a monstrous turkey, and the best overcoat in the city, and boots, and a hat to match, and a new gown, and a dressing-gown, and a shawl, and a set of prints, and a great bouquet, and a basket of toys, and candies — for whom? Why, for Buttons, and Grandpa and Grandma Nutcracker, and the pleasant little wife, and Pepin, and the children, of course!

Louise E. Chollet.

THE WIND AND THE IVY-VINE.

THE

HE Ivy against the old church-tower was greatly disgusted with the Wind.

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Silly fellow!" said she, "always whirling dust in people's faces, and whistling round where he is n't wanted. The next time I have the chance I'll certainly tell him what I think of his conduct. He ought to be ashamed of himself," said the Ivy-Vine; "for he is never at home, and does no good in the world at all." And she discontentedly hooked her fingers closer into the gray stone, and went to sleep.

But about midnight who should come by but the Wind himself, in high glee, and as full of his mischief as any of the family. He had whistled and shouted himself nearly hoarse after a poor fellow whose hat he had tumbled off. He had scared belated passers on the street by howling at them from narrow alleys, and slamming doors and gates as they went by. He had creaked the milliner's tin sign, until she had grown suspicious of all the students in the neighborhood. He had rattled the windows of the Jew pawnbroker so that he had got up, and, with a second-hand revolver and a big butcher-knife, crept softly into the room to attack somebody. But the Wind was the only burglar, and he interfered with no one except the rats. A thousand such merry pranks he had played, that night, and now he had come back to the old tower to see if he could n't tilt a pigeon off his perch in the belfry. For that was truly fun, to catch Monsieur Pigeon, who was tired with talking French all day, and had gone to rest among the rafters. And it was grand sport to watch him lurch, and lose his balance, and slip, and just wake quickly enough to save himself from falling. To be sure, no one could see all this but the Wind; yet he was satisfied, nevertheless, in his own merriment.

Most of all he laughed and whistled about when he heard the discomfited Pigeon abusing him in French for being so rude. For then he raised his. voice, and answered him back in Choctaw, which, you must know, my dear VOL. IV. - - NO. I.

3

little people, no one but the Wind can understand. And how they parleyvoo'd and palavered this night you must get some one else to tell you, for I was n't there. The big Bell was the person who let me into the secret of the joke.

But I heard how the Ivy-Vine gave him her impression of his behavior when he came outside. "You disgraceful fellow! you horrid troublesome wretch! waking decent people up with your noises at this time of night! Go home and go to bed, and tell your mother I say you keep awful hours for a young man."

"Wh-a-a-at! whi-i-i-ch!" bawled the Wind, climbing down, and seating himself on a ledge of the tower just beside her. "Say that again, will you?" he shouted, giving the leaves a kick that set them all dancing together. For you see he did n't think much of the Ivy, and called her a meddlesome old person of no common sense.

"I tell you to go home!" rustled the Ivy in high displeasure.

"And I tell you I won't go home," whistled the Wind through his front teeth. "What is the good one gets from you anyhow?" said he.

"I keep the tower up," answered the Ivy, trying to be as pompous as possible.

"Hoo, hoo, hoo!" retorted the Wind. "Tell that to the owls. I don't believe it at all. You keep the tower up indeed!

"See here!" muttered the Ivy snappishly. "If you don't behave, and stop insulting respectable people in this way, I'll loosen several of my fingers and box your ears."

But the Wind only laughed the louder for that. Every now and then he would skirmish off, but he always came back to his ledge in the belfry to bother the Ivy about holding the tower up. It seemed to stick in his head as something very funny, and he chuckled over it immensely to himself. I really think, if the Ivy had n't said that, he would have gone away and left her in peace. But now he did nothing except throw it in her face. Where I was don't matter, but I knew of it all.

At last the Ivy went from bad to worse. She lost her temper completely, and so the Wind, as was natural, teased her more than ever. Finally, after calling him "Vagabond," "Scoundrel," "Rascal," "Villain," and all the hard names which she had heard the crows use to each other, she suddenly loosened all her fingers from the stone to box his ears. But he skipped cheerfully off, humming a scrap of an old song; and she lost her balance, like the pigeons, and fell clear to the foot of the tower.

There she lay next morning when I went past. And the great tower winked down at me through the slatted eyes of the belfry, and told me everything about it. "Such a fool as she was!" said he. "First she must needs get angry at what she could n't help, and then she must boast of what she never did, and then she must try what she never could perform. Now she's down at the bottom, and she will have to climb back again by herself; for I sha' n't help her a single inch unless I see her working too."

"I wish," says the Tower, "that the Wind did n't make so much disturb

ance; but then he 's a wild youngster, who does more good than harm. His Grandfather Hurricane, now, I hate to see anywheres near. And his Uncle Gale is only fit to associate with that Dutchman, Sturm Wetter, who lives by the sea. But this fellow drives out hosts of uncomfortable insects, and whistles off plenty of sickness; and I always do hate to ring for funerals, for it jars my old bones. Good morning!"

And so I left him; but as I left, I thought I noticed that the Ivy was already trying to crawl up again, and I hoped the lesson had done her good. Samuel W. Duffield.

MR. TURK, AND WHAT BECAME OF HIM.

MAMMA! it's only twenty-five cents. Won't you give it to me?—

Mrs. May looked at the eager face, with its bright, wide eyes and parted lips, and the color coming and going in the cheeks. "What is it, dear, that is only twenty-five cents?"

"O, a toy, the loveliest toy you ever saw. It is fit for a prince, and a queen would want it; and it hangs there in the window, all scarlet and blue, dancing and dancing as if it was really alive, and very glad to be. I went in and asked Mr. Smith how much it cost; and won't you give it to me?"

Mrs. May remembered the balloon on the Common, last week, that collapsed on its way home; and the dancing-Jack that never would dance any more after Florrie owned it; and the singing-bird that would n't sing; and the barking dog that would n't bark; and a half-dozen other purchases which were to have made her little girl happy for a lifetime, and did make her so for five minutes; but the eager face and coaxing voice carried the day, and she took out of her portemonnaie a crisp new quarter.

"O, you are just the dearest mamma!" And the little one ran away as if, like Mercury, she were wing-footed. She left the door open behind her ; but Mrs. May pardoned that to her excitement, and shut it, dreamily thinking what a fine thing it was to be young enough to have little things satisfy, to like rock crystal just as well as diamonds.

Scarcely was the door shut before it opened again, and in came Florrie with the "Prince's Delight and Queen's Envy," as her mother christened it, a little thing that looked like a Chinese mandarin, but must have been meant for a dancing dervish, for it was dance or nothing with it, — with a blue robe, and loose scarlet trousers, and a queer little turban-like cap, to the centre of which an elastic was secured. The thing had a coffee-colored face, with a merry twist to the mouth, irresistibly quaint; and as Florrie swung the elastic in her hand, he bobbed up and down, and really looked as if he enjoyed it.