when she was a wee papoose. You tell 'e stowy, mamma; it's so interwesting I do love to hear it."

"Bless you, little one," said Prairie, "I've told it so often you must know it word for word. But I like to tell it more and more. No great wonder, though, for treasures like our Dewdrop don't go riding every day on the back of a young Indian chief, to be dropped off as a welcome gift into a lonesome little claim girl's arms." Here Mamma Prairie, as Piokee called her foster-mother, gave the bonny red-brown maid of her adoption a very loving smile.

There was no record of Piokee's birthday, but from the annals of her babyhood she was about sixteen.

Her mother may have had a trace of white blood from some generations back, else how explain the curves and dimples of the daughter's finely molded face, the serious little. mouth that kept demure guard of pretty teeth, the eyes, large, clear and soft, whose dark calm. gave no hint of the moroseness and unrest that blight her race?

By no means talkative was our young Indian girl, but at times she sparkled with enchanting mischief that dispelled her gravity and made her brightly winsome. A reposeful voice and peaceful manner indicated the content that filled Piokee's life. She was not given to outbursts of affection, but for those whose care had been a shelter since her friendless infancy her devotion was unstinted.

Blue-eyed Miriam with her floating golden hair and daintily exacting ways she regarded as a marvel of perfection. The bewitching tot did not object to being placed upon a pedestal as Piokee's ideal of a model child, and adorned her high position with becoming grace, considering she had been petted by adoring relatives all her little life.

to them. "There was no one but myself to keep house, for we were motherless - your Uncle Kearn and I. Your great-aunt Abigail, who afterward came West and settled on the claim next ours, was then living in the East.

"We hadn't many friends on that lonesome claim. Your papa, who of course was a fine-looking agreeable boy, came over from the station twelve miles off, every now and then, and our nearest neighbor, a nice, old crazy gentleman named Mr. Welch, used to visit us quite often. Then there was Miss Sally Spratt, and Dr. Whistler who lived not far away.

"Whistler was then an uncivilized Indian boy, but he was bright and manly and I thought it a pity that he didn't even know when P was standing on its head, or that the world is round."

Prairie only laughed and went on with her story. "Then, too, Whistler was quite rich for an Indian boy, and I feared if he remained so ignorant he would be cheated out of all the land and ponies his shrewd old father left him. So I undertook to teach him something. And a dreadful time I had of it. But I worked away the best I could, and coaxed and scolded him into learning his lessons, and now he's Dr. Whistler, with a comfortable income from his property which he is generously using in his work among his people."

"Oh! now you've come to 'e 'nagerie. Lots and lots of pretty animals, and a dreadful little wattlesnake," said Miriam, who knew the story all by heart.

"Yes, I had collected a menagerie of small wild animals that I was very fond of. Whistler helped me hunt food for them, and I had my hands full taking care of them and Uncle Kearn. But for all that I was sometimes lonesome, and I often wished I had a little sister."

"Now my Dewdwop's coming," anticipated Miriam, with breathless interest. "One day Whistler came pwancing up—you tell it,

66

I

Yes, one day Whistler came prancing up on horseback with Dewdrop on his back, snugly tucked into a bag- all but her head and that was covered with a blanket. thought it was an animal for my menagerie, and Whistler made me guess what it could be.” "Oh, oh!" cried Miriam, as she clapped her hands and squeezed a patty-cake with wild delight. "Didn't you feel tickled, Dewdwop, hiding in 'e bag while mamma guessed you were a little bear?"

"I was only eight months old, and didn't know what a funny joke I was helping Dr. Whistler play," replied the heroine of the infantile exploit, smiling demurely while she cracked a nut and dropped out the kernel.

"The poor abused midget," resumed Prairie, "was strapped to a board inside the bag, and her face was not so clean as our dainty Dewdrop now loves to have it."

"Oh! how dweadful; but you couldn't help it and you needn't feel one bit ashamed," said Miriam, and she gave Piokee's face a pitying pat that left a funny daub of dough on the tip of her clean-cut nose.

"Well, I adopted the cunning waif, as Whistler said she had no parents, and called her Dewdrop, which is the meaning of her Indian name, Piokee. I brought her up the best I could with the help of Mother Grabendike, a dear Quaker lady, who had been a friend to me and who kept our Dewdrop four years while I was away at school. And here she is, a credit to the family!" Prairie beamed again on Piokee, who smiled back and by a sudden impulse seized her foster-mother's hand. and rubbed her cheek against it in a soft caress.

"But, dear me! I'm done with the ladyfingers, and it's time to stuff the goose," heeded. Prairie," so I must cut the story short.

"Your lovely Aunt Rose, whom your papa called Sweetbriar because she had some pretty, willful ways that he compared to naughty little thorns, once came to see us and was carried down into a deep creek by a fiery pony she was riding. Whistler saved her life and also fished Uncle Kearn and me out of the watery deep, for of course we both plunged in to rescue her. We were escorting Aunt Rose home

to Grandmamma Bowers's where she was visiting. We had left the baby with Miss Sally Spratt, who was very fond of her.

"A bad man who, I grieve to say, was our honest Ebenezer's father, tried to jump our claim, but failed. He robbed a railway train and went to prison, where he died before his term expired. He had a swarm of very naughty boys we called the Yellowjackets, they were so much like troublesome wasps. Three of them, especially, were simply dreadful. I'm happy to relate, however, that Daniel has turned out to be a very respectable young preacher, much to the surprise of every one, including his fellow Yellowjackets. Jacob is now a Choctaw squawman in the Indian Territory, and if they have the ghost dance there, as they are having in Dakota, I'm very sure he will be foremost in the mischief."

With this conclusion Prairie turned her attention to the goose, which Sally held dangling and dripping at her side, so absorbed was she in the revival of the old memories.

Some years after Mr. Wilde secured the claim that Prairie helped "hold down," a sudden rise in real estate enabled him to sell his property for a very high price.

Seized with the same speculative spirit that attacked her brother, Aunt Abigail sold her farm adjoining his for a large profit.

John and Prairie were then newly married, and were waiting to settle on a ranch in a good location. After viewing well the prospect, Mr. Wilde, Aunt Abigail and John bought a large tract of land in Southern Kansas near the Indian Territory, of which each took one third. Prairie's father and Aunt Abigail combined to make one home, and John and Prairie in their pleasant, roomy ranch house were their nearest neighbors.

John's mother did not live to share her son's home, into which she would have been most fondly welcomed, for a few weeks after John and Prairie's marriage she had a sudden illness that closed her gentle life.

Kearn had gone through college, had married Sweetbriar Rose, and was now a rising lawyer in a thriving young city of the State.

Whistler had also gained an education. He

had taken his diploma at a medical college of repute, and was now a missionary doctor among his people in the Indian Territory.

I

The eggs have given out and the chocolate cakes are not frosted," said Prairie to Piokee shortly after dinner. "You might saddle Chipmunk and go after those five dozen that Priscilla Winslow promised. expected Floy would bring them over, but something must have happened to prevent her. You can stay with Floy a while. Frosting the cakes will be the last work of the day and the eggs will not be needed for some hours."

It was a delightful afternoon in autumn. Piokee was rejoiced to take a ride across the sunny prairie and through the squirrel-haunted wood to Mr. Winslow's, and Floy was a lively young friend whom she dearly loved to visit.

Mr. Winslow was a minister from New England who preached on Sunday at the schoolhouse where his daughter Priscilla taught school through the week.

The Winslows lived on a farm, and Priscilla had a hennery that her younger sister, Floy, who studied with her father, cared for while Priscilla was at school.

Mounted on her sleek bay pony, Chipmunk, Piokee rode off with a basket on her arm. She had gone about half way to Mr. Winslow's when she espied a girlish figure on a large black horse racing toward her at a reckless pace across the prairie.

CHAPTER II.

A WILD YOUNG SQUAW.

Ox meeting Piokee the rider jerked her horse's rein and checked his speed with such a sudden lurch it seemed as if she must have bounded from the saddle; but she kept her seat with steady poise and laughing unconcern.

"Well, Dewdrop, now I've met you I must stop the race!" exclaimed the madcap rider, Floy Winslow. "You see, Bub Merrill, our new chore boy, just declared I couldn't ride over to your house in less than thirty minutes and a half. I've only been let's see twelve min

utes and three-quarters, and see how far I am!" triumphantly inspecting a watch she had brought along to time herself.

Floy's curly yellow hair was cut short and parted at the side, and she wore a sailor hat, a shirt waist and a reefer jacket, which gave her the appearance of a jolly, handsome boy.

"That is the quickest time I ever knew a minister's horse to make," replied Piokee, with a smile. "But were you bringing eggs to us?" glancing with much apprehension at a basket perched before Floy on the saddle, and then at several ominous yellow streaks oozing down her short blue riding skirt.

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Yes, here they are," said Floy. .. Why, something must have happened to them!" uplifting the basket in amazement. 66 Dear me! here is a hole in one end that I didn't notice, and most of them have slipped out on the way and the rest are mashed to jelly. How careless I have been to bounce along at such a pace, and Mrs. Bowers with a lot of woodenwedding cake needing to be frosted with these very eggs. O, dear! what will Priscilla say?"

"Well, of course you didn't mean to do it," said Piokee comfortingly. Haven't you more eggs that I can get if I go back with you?

"I gathered all there were at dinner time, but I suspect there's a stolen nest or two up in the haymow of the barn, that Bub Merrill might search if you could wait for him. He's very slow but pretty sure.

Having explained that she had ample time to await Bub's leisure movements, Piokee pursued her way to Mr. Winslow's with Floy.

"Priscilla pays me for taking care of the hennery, and of course I shall have the eggs deducted from my wages," said Floy conscientiously. But it will cripple me in money matters for eggs are twenty cents a dozen now," she added with a rueful laugh.

"I suppose the hennery keeps you pretty busy out of study hours," Piokee said.

Yes, it does. Pris thought she'd like to have spring chickens next winter, so she's set the incubator and I have to watch the lamp."

"That must be a dreadful care," observed Piokee, trembling for the tender lives at the mercy of well-meaning but careless Floy.

"O, dear! there's no describing it," sighed Floy. "So much depending on the way you turn a wick. Too far up, the eggs are cooked; too far down, they're chilled to death. Bub Merrill faithfully agreed. to watch the lamp while I'm away, but he has such a mania for making experiments I'm just afraid he'll try to find out how much heat the chicks could stand and still come out alive. If he does, he'll roast them in the shell as sure as fate."

The girls rode faster and soon reached the hennery, where, to their relief, they found the lamp burning at the proper temperature.

Floy's fear of Bub's experiments was partly realized, however, for he had pulled the egg drawer out, exposing the contents to a perilous draught of air, and was on his knees peering through a paper funnel to inspect an egg which he was holding hazardously near the lamplight. "I'm candlin' 'em ter see if they're alive an' well," said he. "This yer's goin' ter hatch. Kin see him squirmin' in the shell. But, this yer's bad. So's this yer. An' this yer," holding up two more. "Am afraid you're reck'nin' on a lot o' chicks that'll never hatch," was his discouraging announcement.

"I don't believe they're far enough along to squirm yet, and you must be only guessing whether they're alive or not," was Floy's correct surmise. "There! now you've dropped an egg- though to be sure that happened to be spoilt and you mustn't touch another one,” whereupon she promptly shut the drawer.

"Hum! 'tain't the fust egg that's been smashed to-day I reckin," Bub retorted, with a gleeful glance at Floy's bespattered skirt.

"Not by several dozens," candidly admitted Floy. “But you must find at least one nest brimful of eggs to make up for the mischief you did by daring me to try a race while carrying eggs to market."

Bub obediently strolled off to begin the hunt, while Floy gathered all the new-laid eggs in the hennery for Piokee's basket.

"I'm glad you can stay a while," said she. Papa's holding a meeting in another neighborhood this afternoon, and except Bub Merrill

and myself there isn't any one at home but grandmamma who is sleeping off a headache in her room, and my double cousin Ellery Winslow just out from Boston this week." "Is he a young boy?" asked Piokee.

"O, no! you'll think him very much grown.

up," said Floy. up," said Floy. "He's a Harvard freshman, but his optic nerve has given out so he's dropped his Greek and Latin a while and is taking a vacation. He means to improve his time while out of college studying the Indian question. That is all the fashion now."

"Well," said Piokee, "I'm afraid he'll find that far more trying to his optic nerve than working over Greek and Latin. My people have a long, sad history," she added thoughtfully.

"That is true," said Floy, growing thoughtful too. Ellery is an Indian rights man. He has already made a prisoner of himself in papa's study, pondering over broken treaties. But, he has never seen an Indian, and I don't believe he'd know one from a copper statue. You're so proud of being a little red girl, Dewdrop, would you mind meeting Ellery and showing him how a real live Indian looks?"

"But I've no feathers in my hair. I should disappoint him," said Piokee with a smile.

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Yes, I suppose you would," frankly agreed Floy with a critical eye on the neat little tailor-made girl. "Of course he'd like you better if you were a blanket Indian. Oh! you might pretend to be one just for fun. I've got a lot of gorgeous feathers that our roosters shed. You might unbraid your hair and stick them straight up all around your head, and we've a bed blanket of the brightest red that you could wrap round yourself."

Floy's mischievous plan was irresistible, and almost before she knew it Piokee was carrying it out. Floy smuggled the feathers and blanket from the house, and the grain-room of the hennery was made the dressing-room.

Presently a wild-looking young squaw left the hennery and sought a latticed corner of the front piazza to wait for Ellery Winslow, whom Floy conducted from the study.

Theodora R. Jenness.

Even the babies have caught the Illustration of infection! At a children's party, Margery, the four-year-old daughter

Realism.

of a certain "realistic" author, was called upon to tell a story, as a forfeit. This was the tale, complete:

"There was once a little girl who lived in the mud."

But what happened to the little girl - how did the story end?" was asked.

"Nothing happened," responded Margery indignantly. There isn't any beginning; there isn't any ending. She just lived in the mud!"

One evening a little red-haired, freckle-faced girl named Sally H— came up to my desk at noon and said:

"Please, sir, ma says will you come home with me, and stay all night to-night?"

"I don't believe that I can to-night, Sally," I said. "I will see about it after school."

"I wish you would, sir," said Sally coaxingly; "'cause if you don't we won't have cake with frostin' on it for supper."

At another time I went to the house of a farmer who had such a large family that one or two of the smaller children could not come to the table for lack of room.

There was on the table a pitcher of very nice newly-made sorghum molasses, a rural delicacy of which I was very fond. I was helping myself to the sorghum the second time, when Dannie, one of the little boys who had to wait, said in a shrill and anxious whisper to his mother:

"Maw, does he know that that's all of them merlasses we've got, and that me and Jackey ain't had any yet?"

At another farmhouse a little boy of about six years was my bed-fellow, and after we had gone to bed, and I had blown out our candle, the little boy said to me in a confiding whisper :

"Yes; and there's a lot of splendid big Belleflower apples under this bed."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, sir; mother don't allow me to touch 'em, but I don't think she'd say anything if you got up and got some for both of us."

His manner of saying this was so droll and insinuating, that I reached under the bed and found an apple for him, which he munched away in the darkness with great satisfaction. But we did not touch thefried cakes."

of a Rose.

H.

Many flowers owe their names to The Romance famous people. Among the number are the dahlia, named for Dahl, a Swedish florist; the magnolia, for Magnol, a celebrated French botanist, and fuchsia for Fuch, a distinguished German savant; but there is only one instance known when a man and a flower received a title at the same moment. This is how it happened. When Niel, a brave French general, was returning from the scene of his victories in the war between France and Austria, he received from a peasant, who wished to honor the hero, a basket of beautiful paleyellow roses. One of the stems, which happened to have roots clinging to it, the general took to a florist in Paris, in whose care it remained until it became a thriving bush covered with blossoms. Niel then took the plant as a gift to Empress Eugenia. She expressed great admiration for the exquisite flowers; and, on learning that the rose was nameless, said significantly, Then I will name it. It shall be The Mareschal Niel,'" and at the same moment she bestowed upon the astonished general the jeweled baton that betokened his promotion to the high office of Mareschal of France.

The Lights and Lamps of the Early Times.

Katharine Scott Kelso.

In the early days of our country, a very simple light was made by placing some form of grease in a skillet, a rag being partly covered by this, the end which was out of the grease being lighted, making a rather smoky light.

It should be remembered that, in the early days of our country, the great mass of the people were poor, scarcely having the necessaries of life. Many a young man, thirsting for knowledge, was then unable to afford even an inferior light, when he wished to study in the evenings, after performing a hard day's work on the farm, since even small children were obliged to work, helping the parents support the family.