Harper's Young People, July 4, 1882: An Illustrated WeeklyVarious
General
Harper's Young People, July 4, 1882: An Illustrated Weekly
Various
Children's periodicals, American
We live on a sugar plantation, and the flume that carries the cane
to the mill runs near our house. The whole length of the flume is
eight miles. We have lots of hens, and we children take care of and
feed them, and so mother lets us sell some of them, and we saved
the money and bought a cow. She had a calf, but she was so wild
that we sold her and got another. She had a pretty little white
calf; it is real tame. We call him David. He has a collar on, and
we put a rope through the collar and lead him anywhere, and he
kicks up his heels, and seems to enjoy the play. We children have
three horses that we can ride whenever we like--Flora, Maud, and
Nellie. Nellie is very small, because she lost her mother when she
was small (a few weeks old), and had to be fed with a bottle, but
she is very gentle now.
FRED N. H.
* * * * *
PUSSY'S STORY.
Of course you all think I am a pussy cat. No wonder, when folks
call me Pussy. But you must know that one cold day in March I was
hatched. Did you ever hear that a pussy was hatched, I'd like to
know?
Laugh away, Sue and Ned, Joe and Tom, Mattie and Artie, Polly and
Fanny! It is all true.
One day my master went out to the barn, and there were a whole
dozen of us, shivering with cold. He brought us into the kitchen
and put us right down by the stove. Everybody came to see us, and
they all said: "Oh, the cunning little chicks! Where has the
naughty mother hen gone?"
Then my mistress ran and brought a box, and lined it with soft wool
and warmed it, and then all of us little brothers and sisters were
crowded into it.
The others slept like good chicks all night, but I just cried and
cried. Even the grandma was kept awake, and said, "That chicken
will not live."
The next morning we were taken out to be fed, but my mistress said,
when she saw me, "Oh, here is one poor little fellow dead.
"No," said grandma; "I think there is a little life in him still."
I tried hard, and made a faint motion of my eyes, and so I was put
back under the stove. As I grew warm I kicked my little feet about,
and then the children screamed, "The chick is alive; it was in a
trance."
So for two days they called me Cat-a-lep-sy. When I began to run
around and eat crumbs, they called me Puss-a-lep. By-and-by they
named me Pussy-willow, when the pussy-willows pushed out their
funny little fuzzy buds.
Do you know I have been a traveller? Yes, indeed. When I was two
weeks old I was carried in a tiny basket over a hundred miles. Two
children had me, and we went in the cars.
When we got to the new home, I was lifted out and set--where do you
suppose? Why, right in the middle of the tea table. I tell you,
things looked nice, I was so hungry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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