Read Ebook: Harper's Young People May 23 1882 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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Ebook has 174 lines and 11806 words, and 4 pages

First line, a planet; second line, two planets; third line, a term used in connection with the moon; fourth line, another term used in connection with the movements of the moon.

FIRST VERSE.

First line, a term used in speaking of an eclipse; second, third, and fourth lines combined, three planets, and the name of a foreign astronomer.

SECOND VERSE.

First line, a part of the moon; second line, a form of eclipse; third and fourth lines combined, a man who made a discovery of great value to astronomers, and secondly, a foreign astronomer.

THIRD VERSE.

First line, a cluster of stars; second line, an English discoverer of a satellite; third and fourth lines combined, a term applied to uncertain stars, a titled astronomer, and a planet.

FOURTH VERSE.

First line, the birth-place of a great astronomer; second and third lines combined, an astronomical phenomena; fourth line, a cluster of stars.

BITS OF ADVICE.

BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.

PICNICS.

The first thing necessary to a successful picnic is a plan. You must know who are to compose the party, where you intend to go, and what you can do to amuse yourselves when you get there. Then, too, you must have what in armies is called a commissary department, which shall see about the provisions. A picnic without a dinner would be very dull.

Two or three days before the event, the boys and girls who wish to spend some long bright summer hours together in the woods or park should ask their parents' advice about a good place.

A place to be good should be safe, beautiful, and not too far from home. If not within walking distance, it is well to know whether it can be easily reached by boat or cars, or by stage or carriage. You should find out beforehand precisely how much it will cost to convey the party to the spot. Then select a treasurer, who shall pay all expenses, buy tickets, and take charge of the funds. The treasurer must keep an exact account of everything he or she may spend, putting it down in writing, that a report may be given at the proper time.

Your fathers or teachers will usually be able to warn you against dangerous places, or those which are too public to be pleasant for a little picnic party.

As a rule, you should not admit strangers or acquaintances picked up on the way to share your frolic. It is always best to keep the party strictly to its original numbers.

There are two ways of providing the luncheon. One is to decide in advance what each shall bring as his or her contribution, so that there may not be too large a quantity of one article, and too little of another. John may be told to bring lemons, Janie may furnish pound-cake, Alice biscuits and butter, Louis sugar, and Mabel sandwiches. Or each of the company may provide a nice basket of food, and when the time comes for the meal everything may be shared, and the table spread for the general feast. I think I like the latter way quite as well as the former.

Hard-boiled eggs, potted meats, thin slices of ham or tongue, cold chicken, and plenty of good bread and sweet butter, are among the must-haves. Picnic appetites are famous, and you need plenty of the "substantial." Jelly in little glasses, fruit, cake, and, if mother says so, a few of her delicious pickles or an apple-pie do not prove as indigestible when eaten out-doors as they do under other circumstances.

Do not forget the salt. Nor the pepper. Bottles of milk wrapped in cabbage leaves or set into a pan of ice for coolness are not to be overlooked.

Be sure there is a spring near your picnic ground, or an old well on some kind man's farm. If it have a long sweep and a deep moss-grown bucket, so much the better.

Do not trespass on anybody's private grounds. Always send a committee to the house to ask permission to help yourselves to water from the well, or to pass through fields and lanes not open to the public.

The girls must remember that so far as possible all picnic preparations should be made the day before. It is not well to leave cooking for the morning of the day when you are to go.

The boys, too, should have their fishing-tackle in readiness overnight. If swings are to be put up, a man should be engaged to see about them, or at least the oldest and most trustworthy boys of the party should see that the ropes are firm, and the tree branches stout. Nothing is more terrible in its consequences than a fall from a swing.

Always leave the grounds in time to reach home before dark. Take wraps for the cool of the day.

Be polite, unselfish, and very good-natured and kind.

I hope your picnic parties may be very delightful, and that nobody may do as I once did on such an occasion.

Five of us, Henry, Belle, Jennie, Nellie, and I, went to spend the day at a lovely spot a little way from the city. As the eldest of the number, the luncheon basket was committed to my care. I kept it by me, and with a charming book sat and read until the little steamboat stopped at its landing. Then we all rushed off, and the boat puffed away up the river. Presently said one of the group:

"Why, Marjorie Precept, what have you done with the basket?"

Sure enough! I had left it on the boat.

There is no use of trying to tell you what the rest of the party said to me. Imagine for yourselves five hungry boys and girls, with the appetites that are gained by a sail on a steamboat, defrauded of the delicious luncheon prepared for them by my carelessness.

We did not get that basket again for three days. Well, what I suffered has been a good lesson to me. Nowadays I know how to go picnicking, as I hope you will agree from the directions I have tried to give.

Robins in the tree-top, Blossoms in the grass, Green things a-growing Everywhere you pass; Sudden little breezes, Showers of silver dew, Black bough and bent twig Budding out anew. Pine-tree and willow-tree, Fringed elm and larch-- Don't you think that May-time's Pleasanter than March?

SOUTH NORWALK, CONNECTICUT.

I want to tell you how to make a little winter garden next fall. Fill a small box with earth, and in it plant ferns and mosses, put a small looking-glass in it for a lake, get your brother to make a glass frame to fit over the top, and you will have a lovely garden when the ground is covered with snow.

These warm sunny days make me think the wild flowers will soon be here. First the violets, blue and white, sweet-scented--the fields back of the school-house will be covered with them; then adder's-tongue, dandelions, anemones, and many others, with the bees humming among them. You ought to see what nice salads we make of the leaves of adder's-tongue and dandelions. How often I wish that I could send flowers to the sick children in the hospitals, if the express would only carry them free on the railroad!

Dear YOUNG PEOPLE, I have a brook near my school-house; it widens and narrows, and makes a great noise. By-and-by it will be full of tadpoles, or young frogs, and the apple-trees near it loaded with blossoms. I am glad I live in the country. It is all very well for you city people to have nice parks and picture-galleries; but I have the nicest pictures, a different one each way I look.

JESSIE B.

LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS.

I am a boy eight years old. When I was up at Greenville, N. H., I was out in the meadow, and they were cutting the grass, and I had lots of rides on the team. The man that was mowing told me that there were some moles under a tree on a large rock, and I went and looked under every tree in the field, and I asked him again, and he went with me, and they were all around in the grass, and the man had to pick them out of the grass, and they were no bigger than my thumb. I put them in a little pail, and I filled the pail with soft thistle blows, and I kept the moles three days, and then I put them under a stone wall, and the next day my father and I took a walk, and I asked him to come and see if they were under it, and so we went down, and the bed that I fixed for them was all torn to pieces, and I suppose the mother did it.

RALPH P.

HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA.

Perhaps some of the little girls who read the YOUNG PEOPLE would like to know something about a Cooking Club which seven little Harrisburg girls had last winter.

Two weeks before Christmas we met, and decided that we would have a lunch every two weeks, on Saturday afternoon, at the house of each in turn. Every girl was to bring some dish which she herself had cooked at home. Of course a great many of the dishes had to be superintended by the mammas or cooks.

The President always sat at the head of the table, and carved the meat, while two of the girls waited on the table. We wore large white aprons and muslin kerchiefs, and made our badges of red ribbon, with "R. S. C.," the initials of the club, worked on it.

We had seven lunches, but now that the pleasant spring weather has come, we have given up the club until next year.

I have taken YOUNG PEOPLE since it began, and I read it always with great pleasure. I think "Talking Leaves" was splendid, and I wish Mr. Stoddard would write some more stories.

EMMA D. B.

Your little club not only gave you some happy hours, but I am sure you learned useful lessons while playing at cooking. If you resume the meetings next winter, you must write and tell us some of your bills of fare.

UTICA, NEW YORK.

We take HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, and read the stories in it every week. We are much interested in "Mr. Stubbs's Brother." We like the letters very much, and like to read about every one's pets. I will tell you about a cat I once had; his name was Nimpo Ganges. He was a very large gray and white cat. One day my sister had a little kitten given to her. At the sight of a strange kitten Nimpo was very indignant, and left his comfortable home here for another! One day I went to see my aunt, who lives a few doors above us, and she told me of such a beautiful cat that had come to live with her. On seeing it, imagine my surprise to find it Nimpo Ganges! He never came home again to live, for after calling on us two or three times, and finding the kitten still here, he went to live with auntie. He is a great pet with every one up there except the neighboring cats and dogs.

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