ittle while ago, is not
apt to let them forget.

[Illustration: A BOUT WITH THE GLOVES IN THE BOYS' CLUB OF CALVARY
PARISH.]

A small sign, with the words "Wayside Boys' Club," hung for a while over
the Third Avenue door of the Bible House. Two years ago it was taken down;
the club had been merged in the Boys' Club of Grace Mission, in East
Thirteenth Street. The members were all little fellows. They were soon
made aware that they had fallen among strangers who, boylike, proposed to
investigate them and to test their prowess before letting them in on
equal terms. Within a week, says Mr. Wendell, this note came to their
patroness in the Bible House:

"DEAR MRS. ----:

"Would you please come and see to our Wayside Boys' Club; that the
first time it was open it was very nice, and after that near every
boy in that neighborhood came walking in. And if you would be so kind
to come and put them out it would be a great pleasure to us.

"Mrs. ----, the club is not nice any more, and when we want to go
home, the boys would wait for us outside, and hit you.

"Mrs. ----, since them boys are in the club we don't have any games
to play with, and if we do play with the games, they come over to us
and take it off us.

"And by so doing please oblige,

----, _President_,
----, _Vice-President_,
----, _Treasurer_,
----, _Secretary_,
----, _Floor Manager_.

"Please excuse the writing. I was in haste.

"----, _Treasurer_."

The appeal had its effect. The Wayside boys were rescued and there has
been quiet in Thirteenth Street since. They have got a new house now, and
are looking hopefully forward to the day when "near every boy in that
neighborhood," shall "come walking in" upon an errand of peace.

Most of the clubs close in the summer months, when it has heretofore been
supposed that few of the boys would attend. The experience of the Boys'
Club in St. Mark's Place, which this past summer was kept open a full
month later than usual and experienced no such collapse, although the park
across the street might be supposed to be an extra attraction on warm
evenings, suggests that there is some mistake about this which it would be
worth while to find out. The street is no less dangerous to the boy in
summer because it is more crowded. The Free Reading-Room for boys in West
Fourteenth Street is open all th