A wise bird of my acquaintance, who has traveled far and wide, told me, not long ago, of a queer sunshade that was invented for the benefit of the British soldiers in the Soudan. (I don’t know where that is, I’m sure, and my bird was in too great a hurry to explain. But who cares? I know I can trust you young geographers to clear up any mystery of that sort.) Well, as to the sunshade, my bird-friend said that the upright parts are simply light bamboo sticks. They are fastened to the shoulders of the wearer, and they support at the top a curved awning made of paper and painted green inside. [Illustration] “But it would look so queer!” I said. “Would anybody have the courage to wear it?”—when from the grass near my pulpit up popped an old raven, whose specialties are ancient history, scarecrows, and eavesdropping. “Don’t you know,” he croaked, “that the man who first carried an umbrella was ridiculed and hooted at?” That raven, my dears, narrowly escaped a withering reply. But luckily I remembered something the Little School-ma’am read aloud, one sunny day, to a group of boys and girls, as they stopped to rest in my meadow. And what she read was the story of that very man—the original umbrella-carrier. And she was reading from ST. NICHOLAS itself! The old croaker was right! So I assumed my most dignified air, and gave in. But did that satisfy him? Bless you, no! Before he left, I had to admit that this new sunshade was merely a parasol carried on the shoulders instead of in the hand; that it was lighter than the common sunshade; that it left both hands free for sketching, playing ball, or what not; and that the old raven _might_ live to see every civilized boy or girl walking along on sunny days with a cupola of this sort over his or her unabashed head.—Between ourselves, my dears, you needn’t yet count upon this last as an up-and-down future certainty. I may take it back when I’ve had time to recover from the raven’s lecture. By the way, there’s one good thing about that raven,—his memory. A QUEER JUMBLE. Talking of queer things, here comes a queer jumble from a young fellow who says he lives in Maine by the broad blue main; and that there’s nothing like using the rod and the “line-upon-line” method when you find a school of fish that won’t go to school; and—— Well, no Jack-in-the-Pulpit can make anything out of such stuff as that! But perhaps some of you clever youngsters can understand it. He sends these rhymes, too, which he calls A LIQUID PRO QUO. Oh, shun the ocean big with fate! Nor strive to make the free strait straight. Sauce, if thou wilt, the river’s source, And brook no babbling brook, of course; But keep the treacherous bay at bay. (It’s tide no man hath tied, they say.) And never see the midway sea, But waive the wave that waits for thee! THAT DEAR LITTLE LORD. PITTSFIELD, ILL.