“Fresh Flowers,” 162 June, 164 House-Building, 173 Edwin the Rabbit-fancier, 175 Who planted the Oaks? 181 The Deluge, 186 Page for Little Readers, 187 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1842, by S. G. GOODRICH, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. [Illustration: THE IGUANADON.] MERRY’S MUSEUM. VOLUME III.--No. 1. [Illustration: _Tom Stedfast._] The New Year. There are few days in all the year that are pleasanter than the first of January--_New Year’s Day_. It is a day when we all salute each other with a cheerful greeting;--when children say to their parents, as they meet in the morning, “I wish you a happy new year!” and the parents reply, “A happy new year, my dear children!” The first of January is, then, a day of kind wishes; of happy hopes; of bright anticipations: it is a day in which we feel at peace with all the world, and, if we have done our duty well during the departed year, we feel peaceful within. Methinks I hear my young readers say, “Would that all our days might be thus cheerful and agreeable!” Alas! this may not be. It is not our lot to be thus cheerful and happy all the days of our lives. A part of our time must be devoted to study, to labor, to duty. We cannot always be enjoying holidays. And, indeed, it is not best we should. As people do not wish always to be eating cake and sugar-plums, so they do not always desire to be sporting and playing. As the cake and sugar-plums would, by and by, become sickening to the palate, so the play would at last grow tedious. As we should soon desire some good solid meat, so we should also desire some useful and instructive occupation. But as it is now new year’s day, let us make the best of it. I wish you a happy new year, my black-eyed or blue-eyed reader! Nay, I wish you many a happy new year! and, what is more, I promise to do all in my power to make you happy, not only for this ensuing year, but for many seasons to come. And how do you think I propose to do it? That is what I propose to tell you! In the first place, I am going to tell you, month by month, a lot of stories both useful and amusing. I wish to have a part of your time to myself, and, like my young friend Tom Stedfast, whose portrait I give you at the head of this article, I wish you not only to read my Magazine, but, if you have any little friends who cannot afford to buy it, I wish you to lend it to them, so that they may peruse it.