ed abruptly, but she worked her way on, inch by inch. Two
shingles had caught--three! The smoke had changed into a blaze. Leaning
over as far as she dared, 'Mazin' Grace stretched out her hand toward
the flame. She could not reach it.

With a cry of terror and despair, she fell forward on the ridge; all her
courage and strength suddenly deserted her--she could only cling there
face downward, and sob and sob as if her heart would break. "Effen our
house burns down, I want to die too," she whispered. "But Miss Lucy an'
Marse Jim won't never know how I tried to take keer on it. 'Deed I did."

Up from the creek came the faint perfume of the mint; the sparrows
scolded in the beech-trees. Nellie, who had broken her prison bars,
called again and again from the playground, while slowly but surely up
the roof crawled the ever-increasing flames. But 'Mazin' Grace heard
nothing, saw nothing; she lay unconscious on the roof, an absurdly
pitiful little figure in her ragged dress and pink silk stockings.

* * * * *

It was six weeks before 'Mazin' Grace's burns were sufficiently healed
for her to walk. Mr. Tracy, hearing of the fire on his farm, had driven
home just in time to save the child's life. His porch was completely
destroyed; but the old homestead, with its host of memories and
associations, stood intact--a monument to the faithfulness of a very
naughty little girl.

Almost the first time 'Mazin' Grace was allowed to go out, she took Nell
to the "Christian an' Debil" Society. She limped as she walked, for her
feet were still tender from the recent blisters; but, in spite of the
pain, her smile was one of unalloyed bliss. Two pairs of sturdy little
legs were keeping step in two new pairs of watermelon stockings.

The "'Gator"

BY CLARENCE B. MOORE

The alligator, or "'gator," as it is usually called throughout its home,
the Southern States, is an object of great curiosity at the North. Every
winter many tourists visit Florida and carry back baby alligators,
together with more or less magnified accounts of the creature's doings
and habits, and their stories are probably the cause of this very
widespread interest.

Though the alligator is rapidly disappearing from the banks of the lower
St. John's River, in Lake Washington and in the Saw Grass Lake (where
that river has its source), and in waters still farther south, they are
still to be found in almost undiminished numbers, and ar