The Garden of the Gods is also a remarkable freak of Nature, partaking somewhat more of the grand and imposing. It is a secluded spot, hemmed in by great rocks stood up on edge and on end. They are some of the more marked of the numerous evidences on every hand here of a grand upheaval some time in the past. Imagine tremendous flat rocks, large enough to cover a quarter of an acre of ground, standing up on edge, 330 feet high, and you will have some idea of what forms the chief wonder of this garden. G. B. G. BACKLOGS MADE OF STONE. It will surprise many persons of the present day to be told that the “backlog” of which we read so much in old-time stories was a large stone, a porous stone being preferred if possible. This stone was buried in the ashes, and on top was placed the “back stick.” The back stone in those primitive times played a very important part in the economy of early housekeeping. Matches were not then invented. Flint, steel and tow were the only means of lighting a fire or a lamp. Imagine for a moment the Bridget of to-day thus engaged, with the thermometer ten degrees below zero in the kitchen. The stone, together with the ashes with which it was covered, served to retain fire and heat through the night, and all that was necessary in the morning was a little kindling and gentle use of the indispensable bellows, and a fire was as readily made as at the present day. [Illustration] MAMIE’S LETTER TO HEAVEN. BY J. W. WATSON, AUTHOR OF “BEAUTIFUL SNOW.” An humble room in a tenement house, Four stories above the street, Where a scanty fire, a scanty light, And a scanty larder meet; A woman sits at her daily toil, Plying the needle and thread; Her face is pallid with want and care, And her hand as heavy as lead. There she sits with her weary thought, While the tears drop full and fast; There she sits and stitches away, With her memory in the past; Beside her, perched on her little stool, Sits Mamie, a six-year-old, Who says she is never hungry at all, And never admits she is cold. There she sits and chatters away, Not seeing her mother’s tears; “Mamma, ’tis a month since winter came, And I think to me it appears That the Lord will never find us out, If He’s anything to give, Unless we can, some way, let Him know The street and the number we live. “You see, mamma, last winter He passed, While papa was sick in bed; He doesn’t know we are here, mamma, And He doesn’t know papa is dead; And so it happened all winter long We didn’t have anything nice, And so I think it would only be fair If He came this winter twice.