国 858 "A HEADING." VERSE 1. Mary Yeula Westcott Maude H. Brisse Nannie Clark Barr Jessie Freeman Foster Louisa F. Spear Margaret Elizabeth Allen Helen Parsons THE ROLL OF HONOR. No. 1. No. 2. BY LEWIS TENNEY ROSS, AGE 9. (SILVER BADGE.) Josephine Edwards Albert Lucas Helen Margaret Lewis Julia S Ball Catharine H. Straker Elizabeth Jackson Marion Annette Evans Josephine Whitbeck Anita Nathan Doris F. Halman E. Babette Deutsch Elizabeth P. James Lillie G. Menary Olive Mudie Cooke Katharine H. Neu mann Aileen Hyland Gerald Jackson Pyle Florence Alvarez Isabella Strathy Maud Dudley Shackelford Cressie Struller Susan Warren Wilbur PROSE 1. Catharine E. Jackson Mallory W. Webster Alice Blaine Damrosch Lael Maera Carlock Ethel B. Youngs Alice Cone Jeannette Munro VERSE 2. Elizabeth Toof Louisa Lenoir Thomas Gladys Fuller Jeannette Purdom Floy DeGrove Baker Mary McCarthy Dorothy Pell Anna Eveleth Holman Theodora Townsend Lois M. Cunningham Gertrude Emerson Anna Betts Constance Allen Agnes A. Foster Buford Brice Mary L. Bowers Grace Gates Rachel McNair Talbott Dorothy Wells Atkin- son Margaret F. Grant Katherine C. Bryan Dorothy Hanvey Josephine E. Swain Leonora Branch Elizabeth Russel Mar vin Frieda Rabinowitz Bess Werzeck Philip W. Thayer Gretchen E. Near Percival U. Birdseye Susan Evans Hoyt Arthur Nisbett Eagles, Jr. Miriam Jones Alys Marion Moddell PROSE 2. Frank Hamilton John Clement John G. Dantsizen Dorothy Kuhns Eleanor Scott Smith Clara Allen A. C. Sherman, Jr. Sophie F. Mickle Dorothy Fox Helen English Scott Rosamond Johnston Walker Chauncey M. Butler Carl Guttzeit Margaret E. Sangster Elizabeth K. Stark Thomas Turnbull, 3 William Gould Dow DRAWING 1. Sylvia Allen E. Ussher B. Cook "AN OLD RELIC.' BY ARTHUR T. OCHTMAN, AGE 10. Marguerite McCormick S. F. McNeill DRAWING 2. Julia Wilcox Smith Edward Juntunen Annie Maxwell John Orth Marian Walter Katherine Mary Beatrix Buel Keeler Joseph Burchfield Archibald MacKinnon Anna A. Flichtner Florence Webster Henry Neuman Helen Copeland Bertha G. Stone Lucy Marcel Edna Jessup Smith Charlotte Mae Cook Rena Kellner Julius Metzger Emmy Rusack Sidney Edward Dickinson Rosela Ackerman John W. Dunn Elizabeth Kirchbaum Mary Woods Dorothea Lake Lyster Marjorie E. Chase Emily W. Browne Hildegarde Nicholas Beth May John Orth Alice Shirley Willis Bessie E. Gilman Rena Kellner Robert Calladine Easom Margaret M. Albert PHOTOGRAPHS 1. Lowell P. Emerson N. J. Now Marjorie T. Caldwell Lenore Dunlap Mayme Jones Josephine Marion Elizabeth MacDougall Holloway Howard Easton Smith Mary C. Smith Grace Cutter Stone Marjorie E. Chase Edna Hawley Lily Eckstein Elizabeth Jarvis Winn Marian Walter ham Amy Peabody Alice Nielsen Fannie M. Stern Charles M. Ffoulke, Jr. Marian Drury Marjorie E. Parks Errol H. Locke Justina Rennie Stuart B. Taylor Robert Swanton Platt No. 892. "Laetae Sex." Anna Burdett, President; Elizabeth Hart, Secretary; three members. Address, 7 Mishawum Road, Woburn, Mass. No. 893. Joseph W. Homer, President; Edith Reid, Secretary; three members. Address, 18 Elm St., Worcester, Mass. No. 894. Julius Winterfeld, President; Ferdinand Oppenheim, Secretary; eight members. Address, 22 Mount Morris Park, W. New York City. No. 895. "N. A." Max C. Holmes, President; Ralph Ensign, Secretary; five members. Address, Box 35, Detroit, Minn. No. 896. Michael Rotheisen, President; Louis Feldman, Secretary; ten members. Address, care of Chicago Boys Club, 262 State St., Chicago, Ill. No. 897. "The Laetae Sex." Mary Blake, Secretary. Address, Woburn, Mass. PORTSMOUTH, N. H. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Our Chapter has been getting along finely since it started about two years ago. We have done several things for the benefit of the Chase Children's Home of this city, but the one that I think would interest you most is the fair that we gave last April. It was held in the Colonial dining-room of a hotel here on the 30th day of April, 1905. We had a candy table, a fancy table and a flower table. The room was lighted by electricity and the flower table was in the centre back-ground with the fancy and candy tables one on either side of it. There are six members in our Chapter and so there were two at each table. Each member wore a Dutch cap and apron with a bunch of May flowers on one shoulder. The admission was seven cents and every seventh person was admitted free and every article on sale was seven or a multiple of seven cents. The net amount was seventy-seven dollars and seventy-seven cents. Was it not peculiar that that should be the net amount when it was a seven cent fair? Besides the fair we have given the children of the Home a large scrap book, ice cream and cake at Christmas time, a "Jack Horner" pie filled with home-made candy at Thansgiving, valentines on St. Valentine's Day and last Washington's birthday we gave them a cake with his name on it. With the hope that this letter will prove in- Other interesting and welcome letters have 0 0 0 0 "HEADING. " BY C. R. LARRABEE, AGE 7. PRIZE COMPETITION No. 81. Competition No. 81 will close July 20 (for foreign members July 25). The awards will be announced and prize contributions published in ST. NICHOLAS for November. Verse. To contain not more than twenty-four lines. Title, to contain the word "Orchard." Prose. Story or article of not more than four hundred words. Subject, "Description of a fire." Must be true. Photograph. Any size, interior or exterior, mounted or unmounted; no blue prints or negatives. Subject, "The Brook." Drawing. India ink, very black writing-ink, or wash (not color). Two subjects, "The Old Fence" and a Heading or Tailpiece for November. Puzzle. Any sort, but must be accompanied by the answer in full, and must be indorsed. Puzzle-answers. Best, neatest, and most complete set of answers to puzzles in this issue of ST. NICHOLAS. Must be indorsed. Wild Animal or Bird Photograph. To encourage the pursuing of game with a camera instead of a gun. For the best photograph of a wild animal or bird taken in its natural home: First Prize, five dollars and League gold badge. Second Prize, three dollars and League gold badge. Third Prize, League gold badge. 1000 0% 0% % Do %% 0%°0% 88000 AN OLD RELIC." BY DOROTHY HILL, AGE 12. RULES. ANY reader of ST. NICHOLAS, whether a subscriber or not, is entitled to League membership, and a League badge and leaflet, which will be sent free. Every contribution, of whatever kind, must bear the name, age, and address of the sender, and be indorsed as "original" by parent, teacher, or guardian, who must be convinced beyond doubt that the contribution is not copied, but wholly the work and idea of the sender. If prose, the number of words should also be added. These things must not be on a separate sheet, but on the contribution itself-if a manuscript, on the upper margin; if a picture, on the margin or back. Write or draw on one side of the paper only. A contributor may send but one contribution a monthnot one of each kind, but one only. Address: The St. Nicholas League, Union Square, New York. FOURTH OF JULY. BOOKS AND READING. IF you had asked any small boy on the glorious Fourth what he was celebrating, I have no doubt he would have told you, in some form or other; but if you began by calling the Fourth a "Literary Anniversary," even a well-grown boy might be surprised, not realizing that the great event celebrated by means of so much noise, so much fire, and so much enthusiasm, is the publication of a document. It was the Declaration of Independence that made Independence Day, and that document was only a piece of writing signed by a number of gentlemen for their friends and neighbors. It was a challenge, the knocking. of a chip from the shoulder of George III, for, really, the fight was more against him and his ministers than against the British. We claim, therefore, even the Fourth of July for the Books and Reading department, as a literary anniversary. A STUDENT IN THE FROM the "Memoirs of GOOD OLD DAYS. Henri de Mesmes " is quoted a passage that gives a rather startling idea of the work done by law-students in the sixteenth century. The rising hour was four o'clock; prayers, at about five, were followed immediately by the study-hour, when the students, with big books under their arms, and carrying inkhorns and candles, settled themselves to their work before it was light. Work continued until ten, and was followed by dinner, the only change of occupation being during one half hour when notes of the lectures were compared by the students. After dinner, came recreation; but do not imagine that these young fellows wasted their time in frivolous games. Their "recreation" consisted in reading Sophocles, Aristophanes, Euripides, Demosthenes, Virgil, or Horace! If such was the play-time, one wonders what the study-hours could have been. Refreshed by these light amusements, the students returned at one o'clock to their tasks, which continued until six. After supper, the modern boy or girl would certainly have considered a fair amount of rest or amusement to be earned by such a day's work; but these sixteenth cen tury boys read Greek or Latin in the evening. The writer, Henri himself, ends his account by saying, "On holy days we went to high mass. and vespers; the rest of the days a little music and walks." However, we need not waste sympathy upon the students, for the editor who prints the extract suggests that even in these old times the students found something more amusing than going to church, and that in these passages we have quoted he was explaining to the folks at home how hard he studied. GREAT THOUGHTS SOMETIMES in taking up a BECOME COMMON- book that is celebrated, one has a sense of disappoint PLACES. ment upon finding that the ideas expressed are commonplace or are "what everybody knows." But we must not forget that as a British essayist puts it, "The genius of the past is in the atmosphere we breathe"; by which he means that the thoughts of great masters have now gone into the possession of all of us. The first genius who discovered that the earth moved round the sun is none the less great because the same truth is taught to-day to little toddlers who have just learned to read. It was a very clever remark of a bright writer that it was a brave man who first ate oysters, and yet that feat is performed by many without a thought of heroism. By the way, is there not some young friend of ours who will let us know who made this very reflection about eating the first oyster ? WORDS AS SYMBOLS. IT used to be the fashion to have books of Definitions, so that children could learn the meanings of words and how to distinguish them from one another. If such is still the fashion, you know already how hard it is to give in a few words the meaning of a well-known term; and yet we can understand the writings of any author only by clearly knowing the meaning of each word he uses. There is nothing more difficult to define than a familiar word, and the more familiar the word the more difficult it usually is to define. Not many months ago a London magazine. asked its readers to define in a short sentence the word "Home." There were more than eight hundred replies, and from these the five below were put first in rank. These sentences are none of them true definitions, being more like epigrams. I. Home: a world of strife shut out; a world of love shut in. 2. Home: the place where the small are great and the great are small. 3. Home: the father's kingdom; the mother's world, and the child's paradise. 4. Home: the place where we grumble the most and are treated the best. 5. Home: the center of our affections, round which our heart's best wishes twine. No doubt you all are aware that words are only symbols, and like symbols they stand at one time for one thing and at another for something very different. The word "house," for example, may mean anything from a dog's kennel to a palace, and yet it is through word-symbols as vague that writers must let us know their ideas. According to the dictionaries," doodle" means a trifler; "nankey" may possibly be the same word that we see often in Shakespeare's plays as "nunky," or uncle. So "nankey doodle" would be a term of derision easily changed into Yankee doodle when the word Yankee came to be applied to New Englanders. As for "macaroni," it is a word with a long history. Our young correspondent says that in the verse sent us "macaroni" means a knot of ribbon on a hat; but in the song we all know so well it would appear to be used in precisely the sense in which young people now use the word "dandy," and with the same meaning. A full explanation of this will be found by consulting the Century Dictionary. A SONG OF THE AMONG the Elizabethan FAIRIES. poets of far more renown in their own day than in ours, is William Lyly, known to all students of English literature as the one who brought into fashion that taste for high-flown and stilted language known as euphuism. And yet, to show that he was able to write in the simplest and plainest words, what proof could be better than this exquisite little "Song of the Fairies?" 'By the moon we sport and play; And about go we, and about go we." What could be a prettier bit of verse to teach to a little brother or sister who was just beginning to learn about the fairies? There is but one word in it that even the youngest might stumble over, the word "urchins." But what does he mean by speaking of tripping as lightly as a bee? Certainly bees do not "trip." BOOK-GLUTTONY. WE receive many letters that are exceedingly interesting to us, and yet when we think how many thousands of readers look at these pages, we hesitate to show you any letter that is not very well worth while. Here, for instance, is a letter from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, containing a list of books read in one month by a girl whose handwriting shows her to be about fifteen. There are twenty-five books, nearly all of considerable length. We can only hope that she does not mean what she says, and that the books were read in a year rather than in a month. Among them are "Gulliver's Travels, "The Last of the Mohicans, " "Westward Ho!" Miss Yonge's "Book of Golden Deeds," and "The Gorilla Hunters." Four such books would be an over-dose for a month's reading. Our excuse in criticizing her list is found in her inquiry what we think of it. We think it indicates book-gluttony. If she cannot read more slowly she should read in some foreign language that would compel her to think over each sentence read. This is an excellent remedy for careless reading. She may have only meant that she read somewhat of each. THE LETTER-BOX. CHICAGO, ILL. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: Last summer we spent the month of July at Alexandria Bay, New York, on the St. Lawrence river. We were launching nearly every day. Occasionally we would fish, never having any luck, how ever; perhaps we would catch only a few perch. We met a man there, who had a few summers before caught a muskelonge weighing fifty-five pounds. They are rarely ever caught. To catch one weighing so much is a very unusual thing. I enjoy reading your letters each time you come. Your devoted reader, LESTER COFFEEN (age 13). DULUTH, MINN. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS : Last Autumn were seen great many bears in the city limits. a One day when I was driving with a party of fifteen children, three bears, a big one and two little ones, came out of the woods in front of us and walked across the road to the woods on the other side and did not seem afraid. I have seen three wild deer also in the city limits. A porcupine came in our yard and climbed a tree, a branch bent way over and almost dropped him. He stayed in the tree about fifteen minutes, then got down and waddled away, and looked so very funny. Another day I saw a queer kind of an animal, which I do not know. It was not a wild cat. If I described it, perhaps you will know. The fur looked like a cat's. It was the size of an Irish terrier. I thought its face looked like an owl's. I fear my letter is getting too long, so I will say good-by. Your loving friend, PENELOPE TURLE (age 9). |