I could have gone far back of the birth of Denver to show how the Spaniards explored Colorado before the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock. It was in 1541 that Vasquez Coronado entered Colorado with his little army, coming from Mexico. In the year of our Revolutionary war a Spanish priest journeyed toward California, sprinkling southern Colorado with the pretty Spanish names now borne by the rivers and mountains and valleys. The immediate neighborhood of Denver came to us in 1804 by the Louisiana Purchase, and two years later Lieutenant Zebulon Pike explored the region. In 1819 Major Stephen S. Long started upon a second exploring expedition that led him literally to the site of Denver, where he camped in July, 1820. Twenty-three years later John C. Fremont, "the Pathfinder," came that way, and found several Indian traders established along the Platte. In 1847 the hardy, enthusiastic Mormons passed over this ground on their way to establish themselves in Utah. It is said, too, that Francis Parkman, the historian, built a camp close to or on the site of Denver when he made his famous journey in 1846. And yet it seems to me that none of these events connects itself so closely with the birth of Denver as the expedition of the gold-hunters from Georgia. IN THE BARN. Whenever there's a rainy day They send us to the barn to play From after lunch till supper-time. And there they let us run and climb And tumble in the hay and straw-- Such funny tricks you never saw! We overhaul the piles of junk, We open every battered trunk, And every corner we explore As if we'd never searched before; We play at burglars or at thieves, And crawl along beneath the eaves, Or else we are a garrison Besieged, outnumbered ten to one, And from the windows we repel The foe that hides beyond the well. And sometimes, if there's no one by (If John has gone down to the sty Or to the pasture for the cow, Or--if John's absent, anyhow), We take old Dobbin from the stall-- Which we ought never do at all-- And play at circus, while the horse Plods around a ring, of course, With one of us upon his back; Another makes the long whip crack; A third--the lucky one--is clown; And all the girls have to sit down On seats that have been put about, And they must clap their hands and shout. Oh, circus is the greatest fun! When John goes out, it's always done. ALBERT LEE. THE RAVELLED MITTEN. BY SOPHIE SWETT. (_In Two Parts_.) II. Tilly Coombs watched the sled as it went crunching and jingling up the hill, and then entered her house, with a long sigh that the party was over.