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A VALENTINE AND A MISSION.

BY MARGARET EYTINGE.

Electa Eliza was never seen without that baby. Ever since it was three weeks old--it was born in August and now it was February--she had taken the whole care of it every day, excepting Sundays, from morning until night.

Mrs. Googens, her mother--her father was dead--when she wasn't out washing and ironing, was washing and ironing at home and having no other children besides Electa Eliza and the baby, of course the care of the small boy fell almost entirely on his sister.

This was rather hard, for she was only twelve years old, and lame besides, and it requires a great deal of patience and good nature to mind a baby, especially a lively, wide-awake baby who jumps, and "pat-a-cakes," and "goos," and "guggles," and wants to go "day-day" all the time.

It wasn't a pretty baby, and it wasn't an ugly baby. It had round blue eyes, round red cheeks, round wee nose, and a very bald head, and sometimes it looked so wise you couldn't help thinking it wasn't a baby at all, but a jolly, lazy old gentleman dwarf just making believe to be one, to be carried around and waited upon.

Electa Eliza had gone to school before the baby came, and had been a very good scholar--at the head of her class, in fact; but ever since she had been obliged to stay at home altogether, and it was but seldom she got a chance to look at her books.

Now around the corner from the house where Electa Eliza lived was a church, and on the steps of this church, sheltered by the porch, she often rested when tired walking with the baby.

Indeed, it was her favorite resting-place, and even when the weather was quite cold, she spent many hours there, watching most of the time the house directly opposite, at whose windows often appeared another girl and another baby.

This young girl, who was about three years older than Electa Eliza, and whose name was Theodora Judson, and her little brother were her mother's only children, just as Electa Eliza and her baby were her mother's only children.

But, ah! how far apart their paths in life were!

The Judson baby had a nurse-maid in constant attendance upon him, his sister only playing with him when she felt so inclined, and Miss Theodora had a French and German teacher, and a music teacher, and a riding-master, besides being one of the day-pupils at a celebrated academy famous for its excellent scholars. And her father and mother were the most indulgent of parents, refusing her nothing that she desired.

But yet Theodora was not contented, but was continually wishing to be something that would make her of more importance in the world, and wondering when, if ever, she would find a mission. On St. Valentine's morning--Valentine's Day happening that year to fall on a Saturday--she was holding forth, as she had held forth a hundred times before to her mother, who was listening patiently, as mothers usually do, on the subject which always lay nearest her heart.

"I'd like to become famous," said Theodora, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks glowing; "be an artist, or an author, or an inventor, or somebody great. It seems so hard to live in this big world, and be a woman and nothing more. To paint a lovely picture, to write a beautiful book, to make a discovery that would gain me the praise and thanks of thousands of people--ah! if I dared to dream I should ever do any of these things, I should be perfectly happy."

"My dear," said her mother, mildly, "there are many other ways besides those which you have mentioned by which praise, and thanks, and love, and happiness can be gained. It isn't easy to become famous, but it is easy--that is, if one's heart is in the work--to do a great deal of good to one's fellow-beings. Young as you are, I have no doubt there are many sad hearts you might gladden, and many gloomy homes to which you might bring brightness."

"Oh, mother, can you show me one?" said Theodora, eagerly.

"I could, many a one," answered the mother, smiling; "but surely so bright and intelligent a girl as yourself ought to be able to find out who needs your help and encouragement without my assistance."

It was now just about the hour for the morning's mail to come in, and within ten minutes of the time when this serious conversation took place, Miss Theodora and her friend Bessie Lee were on their way to the post-office.

What a hurrying and skurrying there was! what a laughing and shouting!

How did the deaf old clerk in the post-office ever manage to take charge of such dainty missives? There were big valentines and little valentines, valentines with coarse figures accompanied by bad poetry, and valentines that were marvels of art. There were hearts, and darts, and Cupids, and roses, and posies, and everything that goes to make the valentine a wonder and delight.

No one had a larger supply than Theodora and Bessie, and arm in arm they walked down the street displaying their treasures, and demanding everybody's sympathy, from the old doctor, on his way to treat a critical case, to Pussie Evans, the minister's little girl, who was forbidden to leave the door-step, and had to wait for somebody to bring her valentines to her.

Not one of the merry party noticed Electa Eliza. Yet there she was, and without the baby--a fact so remarkable that it might well have attracted attention had there been a person in the world to give the poor child a thought.

But Electa Eliza had a special interest in this Valentine's Day. Not that she expected a valentine; such a thing would have been too absurd. Still, her interest in those wonderful missives at the post-office was quite sufficient to induce her to give up fully one-half of her dinner to a friend who agreed to mind the baby for an hour. Then with her little crutch she mounted the hill to the post-office, waiting quietly about until Miss Theodora received the gay envelopes addressed to her.

Now when this young lady reached home she found among the great bundle handed her by the old clerk a large yellow envelope on which her name was written in a print-like hand.

With rather a scornful expression on her pretty face Theodora opened it, and found a rude drawing of two babies looking smilingly at each other--at least it had been intended that they should be looking smilingly at each other--one with very round eyes, nose, and mouth, and plain dotted slip; the other with indistinct features, but a most elaborately embroidered dress, over which floated an immense sash. Underneath the picture was this verse:

"You are such a pretty girl With your lovely hair in curl With your lovely eyes of blue How I wish that I was you."

And underneath the verse was the following letter:

"DEAR YOUNG LADY,--I am a poor, little girl and I'm lame too because of a dreadful fall I got once and broke something in my knee. Maybe you have saw me sittin cross the way from your house on the church steps with a baby. Hese awful heavy but hese good but I cant go to school cause I have to mind him and he wants to mused ever so mutch but hese very good and I love pictures and books and now Alonzo that's my baby's name is a beginin to go to sleep erly and if I had some Ide be so glad. I named him out of a story I read once and I thort maybe you had some picktures and books you dident want no more and you might give them to me. I wrote this potry I had to say pretty girl cause lady woodent go with curl and I drawed the babies I coodent make his face right cause I never seen him close but I think his dress is right my mother washes dresses like them sometimes I did it when Alonzo was asleep he dont sleep mutch days hese a very lively baby but hese good If you will let me have some of your old picktures and books I will thank you ever so mutch and so will Alonzo when hese big enuf cause he rely is a very good baby Your baby's nurse told me your name and she says your baby is a sugar plum from Heaven.

"ELECTA ELIZA GOOGENS."

"What a queer valentine!" said Theodora, laughing, as she finished reading it.

"What a nice one!" said her mother. "Far above half of those all lace and nonsense that you have received to-day. And, Dora, those babies are drawn better than you could have drawn them."

"Yes," said Theodora, frankly, "they are."

"So it appears this poor child has more artistic talent than you."

"And the verse is but little worse than I might have done myself. I'll save you the trouble of saying that, mother," said the daughter, merrily; "and so she may stand just as good a chance of becoming a writer or an artist as I do, she being so much younger. Poor little thing! I've seen her sitting on the church steps, with the baby that is so 'good,' many a time, but I am ashamed to say I never gave her a second thought."

"And yet, my dear," said Mrs. Judson, "there was your mission right before your eyes waiting for you to take it up. Help this poor child to the learning for which it is evident she longs so much. Give her and Alonzo some happy hours. And who knows?--you may at the same time be helping the world to a noble woman and a noble man, and what greater work than that could be found?"

"I will, mother--dear, wise, good mother, I will," said Theodora, and she flew to the window and beckoned to Electa Eliza, who had resumed the charge of Alonzo, and although the snow was falling fast, sat under the church porch, with Alonzo, well wrapped in an old woollen shawl, in her arms.

And that was the beginning of the "Star in the East Mission School." From one little girl and a baby it grew in a year to forty children small and large, and now--for the valentine was sent and the mission founded several years ago--a hundred and more bless the name of their pretty young teacher and friend, Miss Theodora Judson, and look up with affection and pride to her clever assistant, still younger than herself, Miss Electa Eliza Googens.

"PICCIOLA."

BY MRS. SOPHIA B. HERRICK.

There is a beautiful little French story which has been translated into English, and called "Picciola," the Italian for little flower. It is the story of a French nobleman who was thrown into prison on an unjust charge of plotting against the government of his country. He was a man of talent and education, as well as of wealth and position. Somehow, with all his life had given him, it had never taught him to look with open eyes at nature, or to see beyond nature a God who had created it.

He was restless and impatient in his close cell and the little strip of court-yard where he paced up and down, and up and down, in his misery, longing to be free. One day he saw between the heavy paving-stones of the yard the earth raised up into a tiny mound. His heart bounded at the thought that some of his friends were digging up from below to reach him, and give him his liberty again.

But when he came to examine the spot closely he found it was only a little plant pushing the earth before it in its effort to reach the light and the air. With the bitter sense of disappointment which this discovery brought, he was about to crush the little intruder with his foot, and then a feeling of compassion stopped him, and its life was spared.

The plant grew and throve in its prison, and the Count de Charney became every day fonder of his fellow-prisoner; he spent hours, which had before been empty, watching it as it grew and developed, until it became the absorbing interest of his life. As he watched it day by day, and saw the contrivances by which it managed to live and grow, he was compelled to believe that there must be somewhere a great and wonderful power that could design and make so marvellous a thing. The little flower was like a little child taking him by the hand; and leading him away from his dark, bitter, unbelieving thoughts into the light of God's love.

I want to take some common flower, something you have seen a hundred times every summer of your lives, and show you a few of the marvellous contrivances that make it able to live and grow and bear blossoms and fruit. If you will study them closely for a while, it will not seem so strange then that the Count de Charney, who had lived so many years without learning anything of the wonders of nature, should have had them opened for him by one little flower that he had carefully watched and studied.

Most plants are alike in having roots, stems, and leaves, and some sort of flower and seed-vessel. But the parts look so very different in different plants that it is sometimes a little hard to tell which is which. In some the roots grow in the air, and in others the stems grow underground. It is only by studying what the parts do that it is possible to be sure what they are. The most important part of every living thing is its stomach, because everything that lives must eat and drink, or die. There are some very curious plants which have regular stomachs into which their food goes, just as it does in an animal, and is digested, but these are not very common. Some day, however, when we have learned a little more about simpler things, I mean to tell you something about these strange plants. Ordinary plants have roots to supply them with food and water in the place of a stomach.

Let us study the roots of some plant. Almost anything will do. If you can do so, get a hyacinth glass and bulb. The bulb is the root, and looks very much like an onion; the glass is a vase made for the purpose of growing hyacinths in water. It slopes in from the bottom upward, and then bulges out suddenly. The bulb rests in this bulging part, and has water below it and around its lower part. The glass being clear, you can see the roots grow as plainly as you can see a leaf or a flower bud unfold. Perhaps you have no hyacinth glass, and can not get one; then try to make one for yourself out of a small glass jar. There will certainly be a pickle bottle or a preserve jar about the house that will answer perfectly well. All you want is to have the bulb rest half in and half out of the water, with room below for the roots to spread through the water. Be careful to keep the water up to the right mark by adding a little every day as the plant soaks it up.

Or you may take a dozen grains of seed corn, soak them overnight, and then plant them an inch deep in a box, having about six inches or more depth of good earth. In about three days the blade will come above ground. Put your hand or a trowel down beside one of the plants, and scoop it gently up. Be sure you make your hand or trowel go away down below where the seed was planted, so as not to bruise the tender growth. Shake and blow the dust away, and you will see several little white thread-like roots coming from the grain. If you take up in this way all the young plants, one or two every day, you will see how they sprout and grow.

If you have a microscope and a sharp knife, carefully split the end of one of these roots and look at it. If you have not, you will have to trust me so far as to take this drawing as correct . All these tiny roots have a cap over their growing end, so that when they have to push their way among the hard earth and stones, the growing part will not get bruised. These roots take in all the water and the food which the earth supplies to the plant.

I recommend No. 3055 of James W. Queen's Catalogue, price , as a very good glass--The Child's Microscope.

The hyacinth can grow in water alone, because it has been a provident little body, and stored away enough food in the little round carpet-bag of a bulb to supply the plant for the few weeks of its life. It only asks for the water it needs to keep it alive and growing. When the thirsty little roots have sucked up water enough, the bulb begins to grow in the other direction. If you look, you will see a solid lump of pale green come up from the top like the horns of a calf, or a baby's tooth. This is the young plant coming up out of its dark cradle into the light and air and sunshine. The delicate growing end of the plant, which will after a while bear its beautiful spike of bells, is very tenderly wrapped up in the leaves. After it gets through the tough skin of the bulb, the plant grows straight up. It stretches itself after its long sleep in the sweet air and light, the leaves lengthen and broaden and open out, and the stem with its little knobby buds comes up in the midst. These will soon grow and unfold into beauty and fragrance, and you will be rewarded for all your long waiting, if watching the wonderful growth day by day has not carried its own reward with it.

Many plants are grown from roots or bulbs, but a greater majority by far come from seed. Tulips and lilies, onions and potatoes, are all instances of plants grown from roots which sprout out from the old ones. The root is in every case the beginning, the seed the ending, of the life of a plant.

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