Beat a big drum all morning, Build a card-house till noon, Play after that with the dog and the cat, Will keep little Johnny in tune. Little boy John is sleepy, Winks with his two little eyes, Nods with his head--so we put him to bed, And under the cover he lies. [Illustration] THE LETTER-BOX. The readers of ST. NICHOLAS are so familiar, by this time, with the new cover of the magazine, that they can understand, better perhaps than at first, how much this cover, which Mr. Walter Crane has so carefully and thoughtfully drawn, is meant to express. The girl or boy who will take the trouble to study the meaning of the many distinct parts of which the design is composed, will see that pretty much every subject that ST. NICHOLAS thinks it well to talk about, is, in some way, symbolized in the smaller pictures. The department "For Very Little Folks" is represented by a baby in a cradle, with a youthful nurse reading to it. Below this scene, "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" holding forth to his hearers; and, in the next picture, the poetry of the magazine is personified by a boy mounted on Pegasus, the fabled winged horse that poets ride. A young hunter, who shakes hands with a friendly gorilla, indicates that stories of travel, in strange and distant countries, are to be found within. In the upper picture, on the other side, two youngsters with telescope and globe show that scientific subjects may be treated of in such a way as to interest boys and girls; and a young artist, hard at work, illustrates how industriously and earnestly our artists work to make good pictures for the magazine. Sports and games are represented by the little fellow playing cricket, which, as well as base-ball, is an excellent game, and often played in this country, though not to so great an extent as in England, where Walter Crane lives. The young sailor in his canoe, starting out on the wide ocean in search of adventure, gives a good idea of how the readers of ST. NICHOLAS go all over the world and see strange sights, in company with the writers of our stories of fun and adventure. There are still other things to be noticed on this cover. At the very top, you will see a figure of young Time, probably the son of old Tempus, who holds out a tablet to let us know what month the number is for; and, at the bottom, are two round faces, like young worlds, which show that children, in both the eastern and western hemispheres, are always on the lookout for the coming of ST. NICHOLAS. At the top are the muses of Literature and Art, who see to it that we have plenty of good articles and pictures; while at the bottom are the two griffins, who keep out everything that is bad. In the center is St. Nicholas himself, the good old patron of girls and boys.