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Here’s a good New Year’s poem that can be made into a card!
The Old Year and the New
The north winds blow
O’er drifts of snow:
Out in the cold who goes from here?
“Good-bye, Good-bye!”
Loud voices cry.
“Good-bye!” returns from the brave Old Year;
But, looking back, what word leaves he?
“Oh, you must all good children be!”
A knock, a knock!
‘Tis twelve o’clock!
This time of night pray, who comes here?
Oh, now I see!
‘Tis he! ’tis he!
All people know the glad New Year:
What has he brought? and what says he?
“Oh, you must all good children be!”
Marian Douglas
A story of life and death on the farm.
A Little Girl’s Pets
Were you ever on a mountain? I have been; and I know a young lady who lives on the top of a mountain all the time that she was a baby and a little girl.
Her name is Fanny; and, when she was a child, she had large dark eyes, and long curls that reached below her shoulders. When she was quite a little girl, she had a big brown dog called Bess.
Fanny and Beth were always together, and very fond of each other. Sometimes Fanny was naughty, and her mother sent her to her chamber to stay alone. One day she was sent, and she sat and cried: it was warm weather, and the window was open.
By and by Bess was heard running round and round the house; and presently she darted in at the door, and bounded upstairs to little Fanny’s door, who heard her, and let her in.
Then Bess looked up at Fanny with her great sober eyes, as if to say, “What is the matter?” And Fanny sat on the floor beside her, and put her arms around her neck, and told her all about being sent upstairs for being naughty.
While she was speaking, the dog sat quite still and listened; but when she had finished her story, and began to cry, Bess threw back her head, and whined and howled till she could be heard all over the house.
After that, whenever Fanny was sent to her chambers, she used to open the window so that Bess could hear her cry; and the brown dog was sure to come to pity her.
Fanny had a little fox for a pet: his name was Foxy; and very pretty he was too, with a fresh blue ribbon on his neck every morning. He had a bark that sounded more like a laugh; and, very early in the morning, he would come out in front of the house, and laugh in his queer way, to let them know he was out.
When he was a little fox, he was fed on sponge-cake and milk, and Fanny was careful not to let him taste chicken bones. But by and by he got a taste; and then people in the village at the foot of the mountain begins to miss their chickens.
Foxy used to be up as early as ever; at breakfast time he would be missing, and, when he came home later every morning, he had no appetite for breakfast. At last he was caught killing a chicken; and so one of the men had to shoot Foxy.
L.G.
