, and said why didn't I throw it
like a man, and not toss it like a girl. So I just sent him a swift
ball--a regular daisy-cutter. I knew he couldn't catch it, but I
expected he would dodge. He did try to dodge, but it hit him alongside
of one eye, and knocked it out. You may think I'm exaggelying, but I'm
not. I saw that eye fly up against the side of the house, and then roll
down the front steps to the front walk, where it stopped, and winked at
me.

I turned, and ran out of the gate and down the street as hard as ever I
could. I made up my mind that Mr. Martin was spoiled forever, and that
the only thing for me to do was to make straight for the Spanish Main
and be a pirate. I had often thought I would be a pirate, but now there
was no help for it; for a boy that had knocked out a gentleman's eye
could never be let to live in a Christian country. After a while I
stopped to rest, and then I remembered that I wanted to take some
provisions in a bundle, and a big knife to kill wolves. So I went back
as soon as it was dark, and stole round to the back of the house, so I
could get in the window and find the carving knife and some cake. I was
just getting in the window, when somebody put their arms around me, and
said, "Dear little soul! was he almost frightened to death?" It was Sue,
and I told her that I was going to be a pirate and wanted the carving
knife and some cake and she mustn't tell father and was Mr. Martin dead
yet? So she told me that Mr. Martin's eye wasn't injured at all, and
that he had put it in again, and gone home; and nobody would hurt me,
and I needn't be a pirate if I didn't want to be.

It's perfectly dreadful for a man to be made like Mr. Martin, and I'll
never come near him again. Sue says that he won't come back to the
house, and if he does, she'll send him away with something--I forget
what it was--in his ear. Father hasn't heard about the eye yet, but if
he does hear about it, there will be a dreadful scene, for he bought a
new rattan cane yesterday. There ought to be a law to punish men that
sell rattan canes to fathers, unless they haven't any children.

POLLY.

BY FIDELIA REES MORTON.

"It's no use to tell me Polly Clark's only young and flighty, and that
she's got a good heart, and she'll be all right when she gets older, and
all that kind of thing. That's all stuff and nonsense. I tell you she's
the wickedest child I ever laid eyes on, and if she were a boy, I'd know
she'd be