“Well, I went to the circus, and saw the ponies, and heard the jokes, and was delighted; but as I stood around outside afterwards, open-mouthed and open-eyed, I saw two of the men whom I had most admired in the ring, fighting. They had been drinking just enough to make them quarrelsome, and such horrid oaths as they were using I had never even imagined possible before. I stood still with fright and horror and watched the blows, and listened to the vile language, until somebody touched my elbow, and there was little Pete, the ragged boy. He was grinning wickedly. ‘My eyes!’ he said, ‘was you in there?’ nodding toward the tent. ‘I was struck all of a heap when I see you come out. I didn’t think this kind was for you. I thought you belonged to the “goody-goodies,” you know. Miss Wheeler, she said when she was talking to us fellows about it, “O, no! Robert Truesdale won’t go to the circus, I am sure; he is his father’s own boy, and is walking the same road he did.” I guess you got off the road this time, didn’t you?’ “I do not believe I shall ever forget the wicked leer in the little fellow’s face as he said those words; and I am sure I shall never forget the feeling of shame which I had as I looked at those two dreadful men with the blood streaming down their faces, and the vile words streaming from their mouths, and realized that I had spent my afternoon in laughing at their speeches, and had been found out of the road in which my father had walked—so far out that this street boy had noticed it! I turned and ran away as fast and as far as I could, and I do not think I shall ever attend another circus.” “How very strange!” said Claire; “but then, after all, Robert, bad men will swear and drink and fight. You did not make them any worse by going to see them ride.” “I can’t be sure of that, Claire. What if my twenty-five cents helped to encourage them to live the life which kept them in the midst of such temptations? That is what good men who have studied and thought about these things say of the circus. Besides,” and here the boy’s face took on a little touch of lofty scorn, “I want to grow up to be such a character that the jokes and jumpings of evil men cannot amuse me; I want to learn to be above them. Then you see what the ragged little street boy thought?” “Yes,” said Claire gravely; “I never thought much about it; I just went, of course, because the others did, but I shouldn’t like to be counted on that side, exactly. Robert, maybe I won’t go any more. I must think about it.” MYRA SPAFFORD. HOW THE DEER KNEW. MY neighbor’s little boy one evening saw his teacher coming up the lane and called her in to take a look at his pet fawn. “Well, if he didn’t get half a foot taller since I saw him last,” said the teacher; “if he keeps on like that, Tommy, he will be a big deer the first thing you know.”