oleful voice from underneath the table. "I don't know
anything, an' I ain't a-comin' out."

"I shouldn't think you did," said Mr. Smith, gravely. "Ah, Harper, my
boy, play is pleasant enough at the time, but I tell you it hurts
afterward; that is, if it's _all_ play."

"And now," exclaimed Aunt Nancy, bringing them back to order, when a
delightful hour of questions, anecdotes, and rapid answers had fairly
whirled by--"the result."

"The first prize, of course," said Mr. Smith, smiling down into the two
upturned, eager faces before him, "belongs, without doubt, to Joe; but
if ever a prize ought to go, as fairly earned under difficulties, there
should be one for my little girl!"

He put into Joe's hand a brand-new ten-dollar bill that crinkled
delightfully; and then he took hold of Lucy's little hand, and opening
it, he laid within one just like it.

"You've got one too!" screamed Joe, perfectly delighted. "Oh, Lucy, do
look and see!"

"Have I?" cried Lucy, poking up one corner of the old handkerchief to
see. "Oh, Joe, I have, I _have_!"

"And here is _my_ part of the Fourth-of-July pie," cried Aunt Nancy,
rattling down on them a goodly shower of silver quarters. "There! and
there! and there!"

"The Fourth of July forever!" sang Joe, jumping up on the table, and
swinging his arms. "Three cheers for the _Encyclopaedia of Events_ I'll
get!"

"That's no better than the Histories I'll have!" crowed Lucy,
triumphantly.

"And I," said a dismal voice under the table, "shall begin now for next
year. Yes, I will."

MR MARTIN'S SCALP.

BY JIMMY BROWN.

After that game of mumble-te-peg that me and Mr. Martin played, he did
not come to our house for two weeks. Mr. Travers said perhaps the earth
he had to gnaw while he was drawing the peg had struck to his insides
and made him sick, but I knew it couldn't be that. I've drawn pegs that
were drove into every kind of earth, and it never hurt me. Earth is
healthy, unless it is lime; and don't you ever let anybody drive a peg
into lime. If you were to swallow the least bit of lime, and then drink
some water, it would burn a hole through you just as quick as anything.
There was once a boy who found some lime in the closet, and thought it
was sugar, and of course he didn't like the taste of it. So he drank
some water to take the taste out of his mouth, and pretty soon his
mother said: "I smell something burning goodness gracious! the house is
on fire." But the boy