Out in the green grass where the company assembled there were a lot of grasshoppers and little gnats. The grasshoppers said to each other, "We can't put letters together to make words, so let us dance for a spell," which they did,--all but one poor young creature who had no partner, and who sat sorrowfully on one side, while the others skipped gayly about. [Illustration] As soon as the people and the chickens and donkeys and wasps and cows and all the others were seated, side by side, in two long rows, the magician gave out the first word. It was "Roe-dough-mon-taide"--at least that was the way he pronounced it. The king and the queen were at the heads of the two lines, and it was their duty to begin,--first the king, and then the queen, if he missed. But neither of them had ever heard of the word, and so they didn't try. Then one of the wasps tried, and afterward a ram, a rabbit, and the head ninny-hammer; but they made sad work of it. Then each one of the company made an effort and did his, her or its very best, but it was of no use; they could not spell the word. Uprose then the little chicken that had stood on his mother's back and tried to crow in tune with his father, and he cried out: "Give it up!" "Wrong!" said the magician. "That's not it. You are all now under the influence of a powerful spell. Here you will remain until some one can correctly answer my question." They are all there yet. How long would you, my reader, have to sit on the grass before you could spell that word? [Illustration] SCRUBBY'S BEAUTIFUL TREE. BY J.C. PURDY. I. "Papa!" "Well, dear!" "Wont to-morrow be Kissmuss?" "Why, no, darling! We had Christmas-day long ago. Don't you remember?" "Yes; but you said we'd have another Kissmuss in a year, and then I'd have such a pitty tree. I'm sure it's a year. It _is_ a year, papa; and it takes so awful long to wait for some time--it's jess a noosance. I fink ole Kriss was drefful mean not to let me have a tree only cos we'd got poor. Wasn't we ever poor before, papa? Don't he give trees to _any_ poor little girls? I _do_ want a tree--sech a pitty one, like I used to have!" It was little Scrubby said all that. She was only four years old, but she could say what she had to say in her own fashion. When she saw her father's sorrowful face, she thought she had said rather too much this time; so she gave him a hug and put up her mouth for a kiss. "I dess I can wait, papa," she said. "But he will bring me a tree _next_ Kissmuss, wont he? Jess like I used to have? And then wont that be nice! There's my baby waked up. She'll be cryin' in a minute, I s'pose."