thing tugged at my line and swept off with it into deep
water. Jerking it up, I saw a fine pickerel wriggling in the sun.
"Uncle!" I cried, looking back in uncontrollable excitement, "I've got a
fish!" "Not yet," said my uncle. As he spoke there was a plash in the
water; I caught the arrowy gleam of a scared fish shooting into the
middle of the stream; my hook hung empty from the line. I had lost my
prize.

We are apt to speak of the sorrows of childhood as trifles in comparison
with those of grown-up people; but we may depend upon it the young folks
don't agree with us. Our griefs, modified and restrained by reason,
experience, and self-respect, keep the proprieties, and, if possible,
avoid a scene; but the sorrow of childhood, unreasoning and all-
absorbing, is a complete abandonment to the passion. The doll's nose is
broken, and the world breaks up with it; the marble rolls out of sight,
and the solid globe rolls off with the marble.

So, overcome by my great and bitter disappointment, I sat down on the
nearest hassock, and for a time refused to be comforted, even by my
uncle's assurance that there were more fish in the brook. He refitted
my bait, and, putting the pole again in my hands, told me to try my luck
once more.

"But remember, boy," he said, with his shrewd smile, "never brag of
catching a fish until he is on dry ground. I've seen older folks doing
that in more ways than one, and so making fools of themselves. It 's no
use to boast of anything until it 's done, nor then either, for it
speaks for itself."

How often since I have been reminded of the fish that I did not catch!
When I hear people boasting of a work as yet undone, and trying to
anticipate the credit which belongs only to actual achievement, I call
to mind that scene by the brookside, and the wise caution of my uncle in
that particular instance takes the form of a proverb of universal
application: "Never brag of your fish before you catch him."

YANKEE GYPSIES.

"Here's to budgets, packs, and wallets; Here's to all the wandering
train."
BURNS.

I CONFESS it, I am keenly sensitive to "skyey influences." I profess no
indifference to the movements of that capricious old gentleman known as
the clerk of the weather. I cannot conceal my interest in the behavior
of that patriarchal bird whose wooden similitude gyrates on the church
spire. Winter proper is well enough