Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1893 — FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS. [ARTICLE]

FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS.

A BILI.Y CANARY. A pet canary bird in Fair Haven, Washington, has always had an aversion to his natural dress, and has industriously pulled out every feather he could reach. The result is that he has now a smooth, shiny skin, which looks like polished parchment, two or three lonely tail feathers and a trifle of plumage on the head and neck. In summer he is all right, but the cold of winter bothers him. As soon as frost comes he is olad in a warm flannel jacket, which he admires immensely. At night he lies down ° n » bed of cotton batting, submits quietly to be covered up, and sleeps there contentedly till morning.

AN INHUMAN PRACTICE. Some crabbed philosopher once expressed the wish that boys between the ages of twelve and twenty might be kept in a barrel and fed through the bunghole thereof. He has had—to the credit of mankind be it said—'few sympathizers with his declaration, though among certain people, if the report spenks- truthfully, a practical test of the value of the same idea has been made. In New Britain, an island of the Pacific, it is said that ull .female children are kept shut up in cagesjuntil they come of age. These cages are constructed of palm leaves, and when two or three years old the girls are shut up in them; nor are they permitted to go out on any pretext except once a day, when they are taken to be washed.' Notwithstanding this forced seclusion, the authority states that the young ladies grow up strong and healthy.—[New Orleans Picayune. A FISH’S NEST. No sparrow in the sure retreat of church-covering ivy is a more industrious nest-builder than the little brown dace, which in our brooks are sometimes called minnows. These sprightly little fish, many of them not more than an inch long, seem to be always at play. But you should watch them now. They begin to nest in June, after the warm weather has fairly begun. Father and mother go to work together. First they begin to clear out a chosen spot near a bank, in the shallow of the running brook. Roots and leaves and all other such stuff must come awav, and some pieces are all the two little housebuilders can move, wjth many a strong pull and long pull and both pulling together. At length, when they have a clearing say about two feet wide, Mrs. Dace lays a batch of tiny eggs in the centre of it, and Mr. Dace, who probably has been away meantime, returns from up stream with a pebble in his mouth, which he places in the midst of the eggs, over some of them. Then the two swim away up stream and come back with more pebbles, till the eggs are nicely covered. Then Mrs. Dace lays another layer of eogs, which arc pebbled over in the same way. More eggs and more pebbles, .ill there is a pile eight inches high—sometimes in a pyramid, sometimes in a dome.

A boy’s grocery store. What a dollhouse is to a little girl a grocery store is to a boy. 'lt always proves a source of both work and play, and it never fails to give satisfaction to its owner and all the children of the region roundabout. Grocery stores that can be purchased arc either too small or quite high priced. A boy likes to have a store big enough to amount to something. The best ones are made and stocked by the boys themselves. The “building” costs little except the labor, and the stocking of it is great fun, as most play depends on a fellow’s own ingenuity. First get a soap box or a larger box if you like it better. Plain and smooth the outside. Then paint it. Set it on one side, so that the open top of the box will be the front of the store. Paint your name on a sign and nail it on the front across the top of the opening. The store “fixtures” are put in by nailing two upright pieces of wood against each side wall—the walls and ceiling, by the way, should be painted and the floor also. Nail cleats across the uprights and set the shelves on them. These side fixtures can easily have drawers. But instead of trying to make real drawers, which most likely would not draw out easily when done, use stout Easteboard medicine boxes, the sort that ave no lids, the box part slipping into a sort of pasteboard oblong whose ends are left off. These outside oblongs can be glued in place on the shelves while the boxes can slip in and out. Each box can be marked with the name of the commodity it is supposed to contain. To serve as handles, sew on shoe buttons with coarse thread, or insert the eyes through the pasteboard and fasten them in by a bit of match. Two counters can be made of them and fastened up by cleats and braces. They ought to be stained or painted. Furnish one counter with toy scales and weights, purchasable for from 10 to 25 cents; let the other hold a pile of brown and white paper cut different sizes, and there can be even paper bags, if the storekeeper cares to take the trouble of making them. You can have a toy iron bank to use as a safe. Have some boxes standing in the back of the store; also,sowte little barrels; they are for sale everywhere. The boxes may be all sorts and sizes, wooden or pasteboard. They help to make the store look businesslike when piled at the rear. One of the tiny glasses used for burntmatch receivers, turned upsid e dowa on a bit of white board, will serve for the cheese-case. Little bottles ranged on the shelves can have all sorts of toothsome essence in them, such as children like to “taste of,” and each can have its label. Gay advertising cards may be put up. A spool of wrapping cord can be fastened above the counter, one end hanging down ready for use. Any boy bright enough to make and furnish the grocery will be cute enough to have all sorts of small candies, nut

meats, ralsina, cloves, cinnamon,, animal crackers, eta., in his drawer and boxes, to say nothing of licorice, gums and a tempting lemon or apple and fresh berries strung on grass. He will want to trade as well as play, and children like to really Buy as well as play buy.—• [Bt. Louis Republic.