PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS.]

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS.

How earnest Kate and Constance and Brother Willy look,
Counting up varied treasures, ship, bat and doll and book!

The three are very busy, and very happy too,
Trying to mend up old things to look almost like new.

The book was rather shabby, but Kate with paste and thread
Has made it firm and tidy, and rubbed it clean with bread.

And now, ere she resigns it, she lingers, glancing o'er
The pretty picture pages and well-known lines once more.

Constance has dressed the dolly--you see how nice it looks--
And all its things are fastened with little strings or hooks.

The ship with clean new rigging--Will's work--they eye with pride,
And they have quite a drawerful of other things beside--

Boxes of beads and sweeties, and many a top and ball,
Saved for the coming Christmas; and who's to have them all?

Not their own merry playmates, bright girl and happy lad,
Who'll meet for winter pastime like them well fed and clad.

No; children in close alleys, or the large workhouse near,
Our little friends--obeying Christ's words--will please and cheer.

And their own Christmas pleasures will seem more glad and sweet
For knowing such poor neighbors enjoy for once a treat.

[Illustration: {A man stands over Que, who is asleep on his mailbag}]

QUE.

He was a wee bit of a boy to carry the United States mail on his
back, seven miles, every day. He was only eleven years old, and as
long, to an inch, as the mail bag, which was just three feet and
eleven inches long. When he went along the road, you would sometimes
see him, and sometimes the bag; that was as you happened to be on this
or the other side of him. Many persons' hard hearts have been made to
open a crevice, at sight of the little fellow, to let a little jet of
pity spirt out for him. But "The Point" ran out three miles and a half
to the south of the county road and the stage coach, and the nearest
coach post-office; and because it was only a small point, and sparsely
settled, it couldn't afford a horse for the short distance; and
because it was a short distance, no man, or boy, who was able to do a
full day's work, would break into it to walk the seven miles; and
because it was seven miles, no one who was not well could walk so far
every day, and the year round. So it happened that the job was up for
bids one spring, and