But there were two things that n.o.body would ever buy, so this great inst.i.tution was obliged to keep them. One was a horrid, grinning, skeleton head, that had been sent to Dr. Gross, the eminent Philadelphia surgeon; but the box being nailed so that the postmaster could not examine its contents without breaking it, he was obliged to charge letter rates of postage, which the doctor refused to pay; consequently it found a proper resting-place in the house appropriated specially to dead things.

Occupying the same shelf are several gla.s.s jars containing serpents of various sizes preserved in alcohol. These snakes were received at the D. L. O. in two large tin cans, the ends of which were perforated to admit air. They were addressed to a professor in Germany. It could not be ascertained at what office they had been mailed. There were seventeen in all, but some of the smaller ones were dead.

System, punctuality, industry, belong to the Dead-letter Office. It seems to embrace every other branch of business, and, as I have shown you, even to know how to treat such unwelcome guests as a nest of live serpents.

HOW MOTHER ROBIN CALLED A NEW MATE.

BY E. JAY EDWARDS.

A friend of mine has a robin's nest that he guards with very great care, and about which he tells a story to all the young and old people who call upon him.

"There is a romance," he says, as he shows you the nest, "about this, and if you want to hear it, I will tell it to you."

"It was a good many years ago," my friend begins, "that this nest was made. There came one morning early in April two robins to the big fir-tree in front of my window. One of them had, as sure as you live, a club-foot, and he hobbled about upon it in a very lively manner, and I know that it was this one--Mr. Robin, I call him--that fixed upon the precise place for the nest. For he whetted his bill upon a bough a great many times, and then he danced upon it with one foot and the other, as though trying its strength, and at last he flew up to Mrs. Robin, who was standing on the limb above looking at him. My window was open, and I heard him peeping the gentlest little song to her that you can imagine.

Then she jumped down upon the limb, rubbed her bill upon it, and danced, while he looked at her, and after she had done these things she sang the same little melody. After that they flew away with great speed, and the next that I saw of them they were working with might and main, bringing twigs, moss, twine, and all sorts of things, until at last they had the nest made."

Now my friend, when he gets so far in his story, always stops a moment and laughs, though you can not see anything to laugh at. But he looks closely at you, and just as soon as he observes the surprise that your eyes show, he says: "I ought to say right here that my mother had a very choice piece of lace, a collar or something of that sort, that was washed and put out upon a little bush to dry on the very day that Mr.

and Mrs. Robin decided to build the nest in the fir-tree. A great fuss was made that evening because the lace collar could not be found, and mother wanted the police called, so that the thief might be arrested and the collar got back, for that collar was worth, I have heard, a great many dollars. But the police never found the thief.

"Now I will go on, with my story," always continues my friend, and he generally takes the nest in his hands at this time. "Well, after this nest--this is the very one I hold in my hand--was built, you never saw a more attentive lover than this Mr. Robin. He would hop about with his club-foot, and seem to put his eye right upon an angle-worm's cave every time he flew down to the ground, and you might see him from early morning to sunset flying back and forth with his mouth full of good things for Mrs. Robin, and he would feed her as she sat upon the nest.

"One day he seemed specially excited and happy; you could hear him singing in the tree more loudly than before, and I could see from my window the cause of his joy. Four yellow mouths were put up to receive the dainties he had brought, and then I knew that the little robins had come. Well, old Mr. Robin was so excited that he did not see our cat stealthily coming, as he was pulling away at a very long angle-worm.

p.u.s.s.y had him in her mouth before he could even give a warning cry, and the last I saw of Mr. Robin was the club-foot that hung out of Puss's mouth.

"By-and-by Mrs. Robin seemed to get hungry, and I heard her uttering two strange notes that I had never heard before, and which seemed to me to sound just as though she was saying, 'Come here! come here!' Of course that was not what she said, but I have no doubt that the notes meant just that, and that every robin that might have heard them would have understood them as a call for help. But no robin came. It rained all that day, and poor Mrs. Robin kept up that cry, and her young ones continually thrust their bills from beneath her body, and opened them. I could not help them, of course, for little birds would rather starve than be fed by any one but their parents.

"Now I am coming to the strangest part of my story," my friend always says when he reaches this point. "The next morning was clear, and I happened to be up early. Old Mrs. Robin had begun her plaintive call.

Suddenly I saw a great many robins--not less than twenty, I should say--that had come together from some place, and rested upon the branches of a great elm-tree that was only a few yards away from the fir-tree. Of all the noises I ever heard from birds, those that these robins made were the strangest. At last they were quiet, and two of them flew off to the fir-tree, and cautiously made their way to the nest.

Mrs. Robin looked at them, and sang a little trill. One of the visitors, with much shaking of his head, sang something in reply, and then the other one did the same thing. Mrs. Robin repeated her trill, and then she hopped up to the branch above, and sang another note or two, and the smaller of the two robins took his place beside her. Then the other robin flew away to his companions, and after singing a little, they all went off together.

"When I looked back to the nest, Mrs. Robin sat there perfectly quiet, and, not more than a minute after, the new Mr. Robin brought a worm, and he was from that time until the little ones got their feathers and flew off as kind and attentive to Mrs. Robin as had been poor old club-footed Mr.

"Now isn't this a pretty love story?" my friend inquires, and of course you say it is, and then ask him why he laughed, and what his mother's lace collar had to do with it, and he will answer you in this way:

"Look in the nest. See what lies on the bottom, where the little robins nestled. I got the nest after they all flew away together, and there in the bottom was my mother's lace collar, not good to wear any longer, so I have let it stay there ever since. Do you suppose young robins ever had such a costly bed?"

CHARLEY BENNET'S GHOST STORY.

BY MRS. MARGARET EYTINGE.

"It is a sin to steal a pin, As well as any greater thing,"

sang little Al Smith, in a loud, shrill voice.

"Very good sentiment, but very poor rhyme," drawled Hen Rowe (whose father was a poet), patting the singer's flaxen head in a patronizing manner.

"Talking of stealing," said Charley Bennet, dropping the pumpkin he was turning into a lantern, "did I ever tell you fellers about the time I went down to old Pop Robins's to steal apples, and came back past the barn where the horse-thief hung himself years and years ago, 'cause he knew the constables--they called 'em constables in those times--were after him, and that he'd be hung by somebody else if he didn't? No?

Here's a ghost story for you, then, and I hope it will be a warning to you all never to take anything that doesn't belong to you, 'specially apples.

"You see, Billy Evans and I were staying with our folks at the hotel in Bramblewood that summer, and about two miles away was Pop Robins's farm.

He used to bring eggs and chickens and vegetables and fruit to the hotel; and, oh my! wasn't he stingy?--you'd better believe it. He wouldn't even give you two or three blackberries, and if you asked him for an apple, he'd tremble all over. A reg'lar old miser _he_ was, with lots of money, and a bully apple orchard. 'Let's go there some night and help ourselves,' says Billy Evans, one day. 'Dogs,' says I. 'Only one,'

says he; 'I know him, and so do you--old Snaggletooth; I gave him almost all the meat we took for crab bait the day we didn't catch any.' 'All right,' says I.

"But when the night we'd agreed on came, Billy had cousins--girls--down from New York, and he had to stay home and entertain them. I don't care much for girls myself, and I was afraid they might want me to help entertain them too, so I made up my mind to go down to Pop Robins's alone. It was a splendid night; the moon shone so bright that it was almost as light as day. I scudded along, whistling away, until I got within half a mile of the orchard, and then I stopped my noise and walked as softly as possible, till I came to the first apple-tree. I shinned up that tree in a jiffy (old Snaggletooth didn't put in an appearance), filled my bag with jolly fat apples, and slid down again.

But when I came to lift the bag up on my shoulder, I found it was awful heavy to carry so far, and I was just agoing to dump some of the apples out, when I remembered all of a sudden that if I cut across the meadow to the plank-road, I could get back to the hotel in a little more than half the time it would take to go the way I came.

"So I shouldered my load, and was nearly across the meadow before I thought of the haunted barn at the end of it. It wasn't a nice thing to remember; but I wasn't agoing to turn back, ghost or no ghost, and I tried to whistle again, when all at once that thing Al Smith was singing just now popped into my head, and says I to myself, 'That's so, Charles F. Bennet; you and your chums may think it's great fun to help yourselves to other people's apples and water-melons and such things, but it's just as much stealing as though you went into a man's house and stole his coat.' It doesn't seem as bad when you're going for 'em; but when you're coming back, up a lonely road, all alone, at ten o'clock at night, a lot of stolen apples on your back, and a haunted barn not far off, it seems _worse_.

"All the same, I held on to the apples. And when I faced the barn I determined I'd whistle if I died in the attempt; but, boys, I don't believe anybody could have told _that_ 'Yankee Doodle' from 'Auld Lang Syne.' I tell you my heart jumped when I pa.s.sed the tumble-down old place; but it _stood still_ when, as I marched up the plank-road, I heard a step behind me. I wheeled around in an instant, but there was nothing to be seen. The moon shone as bright as ever, but there was nothing to be seen! 'I must have imagined it,' says I to myself, and I walked a little faster, listening with all my might, and sure enough pat, pat, pat, came the step after me. Again I wheeled round. Not a thing did I see. And again I started on, the apples growing heavier and heavier. Pat, pat, pat, came the step. It wasn't like a human step. That made it more dreadful. 'It _must_ be the ghost,' I thought; and I don't mind telling you, fellers, I never was so frightened in my life. The time I fell overboard was nothing to it. I made up my mind, when I reached the bridge that crossed a little brook near our hotel, I'd streak it (I hadn't exactly run yet, for I was saving my strength till the last). But before I got to the bridge, says I to myself--and I must have said it out loud, though I didn't mean to--'Perhaps he wants the apples.'

"'Apples!' repeated a hoa.r.s.e voice, with a horrid laugh.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'THERE IT IS,' SAYS BARNEY."]

"I tell you, boys, those apples flew, and I flew too. Over the bridge I went like lightning, and ran right into Barney Reardon, one of the stable-men, who was coming to look for me. 'Something has followed me,'

I gasped, 'from the haunted barn--the ghost!' 'Did you see it?' says he.

'No,' says I, 'though I turned round a dozen times to look for it. But I heard it pat, pat, pat, behind me all the way.' 'And it's behind you now,' says Barney, bursting into a loud laugh. I jumped about six feet.

'There it is,' says Barney, roaring again, and pointing to--Pop Robins's tame raven! The sly old thing looked up at me, nodded its shining black head, croaked 'Apples!' and walked off. It had followed me from the barn, and every time I wheeled quickly round, it hopped just as quickly behind me, and so of course I saw nothing but the long road and the moonlight on it. But I never want to be so scared again, and if ever any of you boys go for anything belonging to other people, don't you count me in."

"What became of the apples?" asked Jerry O'Neil.

"If you'd 'a been there I could have told you," said Charley.

THE HOUSE THAT BELL BUILT;

Or, the Sad End of a little Girl's Romance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Sitting alone in the fire-light's flare, This is the house that Bell built.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

This is the girl with the golden hair, That lived in the house that Bell built.

[Ill.u.s.tration]