g the soft white dough;
And this is the song she is singing to-day,
As merry and busy she's working away:
"'T is the finest dough whether near or afar,
And it is for Alice's supper--ha! ha!"

[Illustration]

To the nursery now comes mother, at last,--
And what in her hand is she bringing so fast?
'T is a plateful of something, all yellow and white,
And she sings as she comes, with her smile so bright:
"'T is the best bread and butter I ever did see,
And it is for Alice's supper--he! he!"

[Illustration]

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

"Warm!" you say?

Don't mention it, but take it good-naturedly.

And, now, let's be quiet and have a talk about

HEARING FLIES WALK.

"Ho, ho; nobody can do that!"

But anybody _can_ do that,--with a microphone.

"And what's a microphone?"

Why, it's a machine by which very low sounds, that don't seem to be
sounds at all, may be made to grow so loud and clear that you can easily
hear them. If any of you come across one of these things, my dears, just
take it to some quiet green spot, and coax it to let you hear the grass
grow.

There's one feature of the microphone that is likely to be troublesome;
it makes loud noises sound hundreds of times louder. Something must be
done, therefore, to prevent the use of these machines on any Fourth of
July. That would be what nobody could stand, I should think.

A CRAB THAT MOWS GRASS.

Isn't this dreadful? In India--a long way off, I'm glad to say--there is
a kind of crab that eats the juicy stalks of grass, rice, and other
plants. He snips off the stalks with his sharp pincers, and, when he has
made a big enough sheaf, sidles off home with it to his burrow in the
ground, to feast upon it.

Ugh! I hope I shall never hear the cruel click of his pincers anywhere
near me!

WASHERWOMEN IN TUBS.

Over here, as I've heard, the clothes to be washed are put in tubs, and
the washerwomen or washermen stand outside at work. But I'm told that in
some parts of Europe the washerwomen themselves get into the tubs. They
do this to keep their feet dry. The tubs or barrels are empty, and are
set along the river banks in the water, and each washerwoman stands in
her tub and washes the clothes in the river, pounding, and soaping, and
rinsing them, on a board, without changing her position.

MICE IN A PIANO.

Chicago, Ill.

DEAR JACK: I have long wished to tell you of a little incident that
occur