Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1910 — YOUNG FOLKS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

YOUNG FOLKS

Bast Say* “Ball.” This is a game in which no one is allowed to smile and laugh. All-the players except one sit in a row or halfcircle; one goes out of the room and returns with a 'Stick or poker in his hand, and a grave and solemn face. He is supposed to have just returned from a visit to Buff. The first player <|sks him: “Where do you come from?” “From Buff.” ___ <t The next asks: “Did lie say anything to you?” To which the reply is: “Buff said ‘Baff.’ - And he gave me this staff. Telling me neither to smile nor to laugh. Buff says ‘Baff’ to all his men, And I say ‘Baff’ to you again. And he neither laughs no smiles, In spite of all your cunning wiles. But carries his face with a very good grace, And passes his staff to the-very next place.” If he can repeat all this without laughing he delivers up his staff to some one else, and takes his seat; but if he laughs, or even smiles, he pays a forfeit before giving it up.

The Family Tree*. .y* A great many years ago Polly and Amy Ann weDt to school together. School “kept” all summer, with just one holiday on the Fourth of_ July. The schoolhouse looked like a square black box.. There were no trees round it and no grass, for ths" children’s feet, playing tag and leap-frog, had worn the ground as hard as a floor. The other children ate their luncheon in a little crowd on t\e door step, but' Polly and Amy Ann knew a pleasanter place. It a secret; they iiever told anybody. Just behind the schoolhouse was a beautiful meadow, belonging to Amy Ann’s father. Through the meadow tan a brook, with little fishes in the bottom and blue flag along the edge, and by the brook grew an elder bush. Polly and Amy Ann called this bush their house, and under it they always ate their dinner. There was only one trouble. The bush was just a little bit too small to them. both. If Polly’s head was In the shadow. Amy Ann’s pink sunbonnet was in the sun. “Wish we could build a wing to our house!” said Polly. —“Why,-so we ean! ” -cried -Amy Ann, nodding her bonnet excitedly. “Let’s we do it! Two of ’em!” The little bonnets bent close together while they planned It all out. After school Amy Ann borrowed her father’s spade, and they set off for the woods. There' they found two baby elm trees and they dug them up with the wee tiny roots and all. They planted the little trees by their playhouse —Amy Ann’s on one side of the brook and Polly’s on the other. They did not know that they were keeping Arbor day, for It had never been heard of then So they had no singing nor speeches; only the little wren that lived In the elder hush kept saying: “Chirp! Chirp!” And her nine children poked their little brown heads over the edge of the nest and said, “Chirp!” all in concert The little trees grew and grew; so

did Polly and Amy Ann They got to be young ladles, then middle-aged ladies, and then old ladies Nobody called them Polly and Amy Ann now;, they were Grandma White and Grandma Grant " Grandma White lived a long way from Grandma Grant and the meadow and the old schoolhouse But she did not forget them, and there was no story that her little Amy liked so well as the story of the two little elm tree?' and the nine little wrens. So when Grandma White went to visit Grandma Grant she had to take Amy with her: ~r You should have seen how happy the two grandmothers were! And you should have seed what fun little Amy and little Polly had together! And how the first thing they all did was to go down into the meadow to look at the little elms. But they were not little elms any longer: They were tall, beautiful trees, and they held out their long green arms to each other over the little brook. “What is it that says, “Chirp, chirp?” asked the little girls. They looked up and saw a little wren’s nest in the tree. ~ = “Perhaps these are the grandchildren of the wren that lived in the elder bush,” said the grandmothers. “‘This must be their family tree.”— Youth’s Companion. Tired Out.

British Humor. y Here is a recent example of British humor. It is taken from a London periodical; “An old gentleman known for his silence, was driving over Putney bridge*- whea -bo- -asked- his -csaehmaHt‘Do you like eggs, James?’ “ ‘Yes, sir,’ replied the man, and hpre the conversation stopped. “A year after, passing over the bridge again, the old gentleman turned to the man, saying, ‘How?’ “ ‘Poached, sir,’ was the instant reply.” The Jelly-Fish. I wish I had a jelly-fish, A sympathetic jelly-fish, A cultivated, gentle Jelly-fish To live at home with me. I’d feed him from a silver dish A most artistic silver dish, A highly polished silver dish And give him toast and tea. I’d always be polite and kind, I’d try to cultivate his mind. Oh, don’t you, won’t you, try to find A jelly-fish for me?