Ah, swiftly the bird from the nest flies away, And the bud to a blossom unfolds day by day, While the woman looks forth in my baby-girl's eyes, Through her joys and her sorrows, her tears and surprise-- Too soon shall the years bring this gift to her cup, God keep her, my woman who's now growing up! BY KATHRINE LENTE STEVENSON. Who said that I was a naughty dog, And could not behave if I tried? I only chewed up Katrina's French doll, And shook her rag one until it cried. WHY HE WAS WHIPPED. He was seven years old, lived in Cheyenne, and his name was Tommy. Moreover he was going to school for the first time in his life. Out here little people are not allowed to attend school when they are five or six, for the Law says: "Children under seven must not go to school." But now Tommy was seven and had been to school two weeks, and such delightful weeks! Every day mamma listened to long accounts of how "me and Dick Ray played marbles," and "us fellers cracked the whip." There was another thing that he used to tell mamma about, something that in those first days he always spoke of in the most subdued tones, and that--I am sorry to record it of any school, much more a Cheyenne school--was the numerous whippings that were administered to various little boys and girls. There was something painfully fascinating about those whippings to restless, mischievous little Tommy who had never learned the art of sitting still. He knew his turn might come at any moment and one night he cried out in his sleep: "Oh, dear, what will become of me if I get whipped!" But as the days passed on and this possible retribution overtook him not, his fears gradually forsook him, and instead of speaking pitifully of "those poor little children who were whipped," he mentioned them in a causal off-hand manner as, "those cry-babies, you know?" One afternoon mamma saw him sitting on the porch, slapping his little fat hand with a strap. "Tommy, child, what in the world are you doing?" she asked. Into his pocket he thrust the strap, and the pink cheeks grew pinker still as their owner answered: "I--I--was just seeing--how hard I could hit my hand--without crying;" and he disappeared around the side of the house before mamma could ask any more questions. The next day Tommy's seatmate, Dicky Ray, was naughty in school, and Miss Linnet called him up, opened her desk, took out a little riding whip--it was a bright blue one--and then and there administered punishment. And because he cried, when recess came, Tommy said: "Isn't Dick Ray just a reg'lar girl cry-baby?" (He had learned that word from some of the big boys, but, mind you! he never dared to say it before his mother.) Dick's face flushed with anger. "Never you mind, Tommy Brown," said he, "Just wait till you get whipped and we'll see a truly girl-cry-baby then, won't we, Daisy?"