OUR BOYS GIRLS OLIVER OPTIC, Editor. HAPPY NEW YEAR. are appreciated and anticipated with deligl. The issue of fifty-two numbers a year, instead of twelve, involves a vast amount of labor and expense, and a large circulation is necessary in order to sustain it. Our lists of purchasers and mail subscribers are steadily and rapidly increasing; but we ask our friends, young and old, who so cordially approve the conduct of the work, to assist us in i our circulation. They can do quite as much easing A HAPPY NEW YEAR! From the decept for the improvement of the Magazine as we est depths of our editorial heart we greet our numerous family of readers with the benedictions of the season. A MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! May life be full of joys to them, real and abiding joys, which fade not as time fades! As trials and sorrows must come to all, may they have the strength and the hope which shall enable them to bear all, and to wrest even from the blighting stroke of adversity the living joy which is superior to earthly cares and troubles! Christmas and New Year, as they are close together in point of time, seem to have an intimate association in their significance. The sanctities of the one hallow the hopes of the other, and He whose natal day we commemorate on the one has given us the blessed precept and example which alone can make the other truly happy. We would not ask that our young friends may be spared from all the sad and calamitous experiences of human life, for these may be the fountain-head of true happiness; but we would invoke for them that excellent spirit which "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things;" that spirit which, even in the gloom of sorrow and the blight of disappointment, will make A HAPPY NEW YEAR. THE NEW VOLUME. OUR BOYS AND GIRLS has completed its first year of existence. We commenced in faith and hope, and both the publishers and the editor have labored earnestly to meet the wishes of the juvenile public. We have made hosts of friends in all parts of the country, who have worked with us and for us, and it is no small gratification for us to realize that our enterprise is a decided success. The Magazine has been as thoroughly and heartily approved as its conductors could possibly desire, by the press and the public. The experience of the year has demonstrated that the plan of publishing a juvenile magazine every week was a practicable one, and we are happy to know that its frequent visits can, for the larger our list the greater will be our facilities for carrying out our ideal of a with all thy gettings, get subscribers! juvenile publication.. Get subscribers; and advertising pages. Our prospectus for 1868 will be found in the As in the last year we more than kept the promises made by the publishers, so we hope, in the coming volumes, to do more than is set forth in the beginning. We shall labor to please our readers, and to improve them in mind and heart. We expect to make the Magazine better and better with each new volume, and never to be quite satisfied with what we have done. Each of our fifty-two numbers looks small, but the whole of them make a huge volume, which contains MORE READING MATTER THAN ANY OTHER JUVENILE MAGAZINE IN THE UNITED STATES. We give more rebuses, more puzzle matter, more stories than any other. If any of our young readers think the Magazine is small, let them look over their numbers for the past year, and they cannot fail to be more than satisfied. FREAKS OF FORTUNE; OR, HALF ROUND THE WORLD. AS BY OLIVER OPTIC. CHAPTER III. THE HOLE IN THE WALL. Thrusting his hand down into the aperture, a cold chill swept through his frame when he failed to touch the bags in which the gold was contained. With convulsive energy, he felt in every part of the cavity; but the money had surely taken to itself wings and flown away. Had all the human beings upon the earth been suddenly destroyed before his eyes, the effect upon the miser could not have been more deplorable. He loved his money; he did not love his fellow-beings. His heart almost ceased to beat beneath the shock, his lip quivered, and the tears started in his eyes. His brain began to reel before the blow; he uttered a prolonged howl, and rushed out into the kitchen rather S soon as Dock Vincent and Mat Mogmore had left the house, Mr. Fairfield procured a case-knife, for he was not the owner of so useful an implement as a screwdriver, and, with trembling anxiety, removed the board that covered the hole in the wall. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by LEE & SHEPARD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. (17) 66 Nonsense, Nathan!" interposed Mrs. Fairfield. "Levi didn't do nothin' of the sort." "Didn't you tell me he went up in the attic before the fire? Didn't you tell me you gave Bessie Watson was terrified by the fearful aspect of Mr. Fairfield when he entered the room, and for weeks the awful expression upon his face haunted her like the vision of a midnight ghost. Levi was startled, and Mrs. Fair-him a piece of candle?" demanded Mr. Fairfield, accustomed as she was to the ways of her husband, was deeply moved by his singular conduct. When he was ailing, he was subject to fainting fits; but he had never appeared so badly as on the present occasion. Levi and his aunt conveyed the senseless form to the front room, and after working over him nearly half an hour, he came out of the fit, but only to suffer the most intense agonies at the loss of his money. "What on airth is the matter with you, Nathan?" asked his wife, when, after another examination of the hole in the wall, he appeared in the kitchen again. field, earnestly; and doubtless he felt that Levi was guilty, for his impulsive charge was made on the strength of a course of reasoning he had followed out. "What if I did tell you so? Levi didn't steal no four thousand dollars. There's no sense nor reason in sayin' so," added aunt Susan. "I say he did steal it. I know he did, now," persisted the miser. "He set the house afire, and then took the money. That boy hates me, and he's bad enough to do anything, if he is go'n' to jine the church." “Levi has money enough,” argued Mrs. Fairfield. "Why should he steal your money?" "Cause he hates me." "Uncle Nathan, I don't hate you, and I didn't steal your money," said Levi, who had calmly listened to the debate between his uncle and aunt. "Yes you did; you set the house afire, so's to git a chance to git the money. It's all plain Bessie had gone home; but Levi remained, enough to me,” continued the old man, striding to render any assistance in his power in put-up and down the room more rapidly than before. ting the house to rights. "I suppose it will be useless for me to say "O!" groaned the miser, heavily, as he anything," added Levi, more in pity than in paced the room with furious strides. "Can't you tell what ails you?" continued Mrs. Fairfield. 66 It's all gone," gasped he, with a prolonged sigh. anger. "I am willing to do anything I can to help you find the money, if it is lost, or catch the thief, if it was stolen." ""Tain't no use for you to talk no more, Levi Fairfield," said the old man, stopping in "What is it? What's all gone? Why don't front of him. "You know all about it, and you you tell a body what has happened?" took the money. If you're a mind to give it "My money is all gone! Somebody has all back to me, I won't say a word to nobody - robbed me, ruined me!" stolen it "Who on airth stole it?" about it." "I donno," replied Mr. Fairfield, glancing at it. I was not aware that you had so much Levi. "How much was stole?" "Four thousand dollars," sighed the miser. "For massy sake!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfield; and it was a question whether she would not faint, for such a sum of money was beyond her comprehension. "Where was it, uncle Nathan?" asked Levi, who pitied the sufferings of the old man. The miser looked at his nephew. People always suspect those whom they hate. If any wicked deed is done, they charge it upon those they love the least, regardless of circum tances. money in the house," replied Levi. "What did you want of the candle, then, if you didn't steal the money?" "I wanted it to grease the saw-mill, and t.e candle lies on a rock by the brook now." "Didn't you set the house afire when you went up in the garret?" "I did not. I had no light, and not even a match in my pocket." "Who did steal it, then, if you didn't?" "I don't know. Where did you keep the money?" The old man led the way to his chamber, and pointed out the hole. "That's a bad place to keep money," said Levi. ""Tain't no use to keep money in the bank now; they're all failin', and folks is failin'; and a man that's got a little money is wus off than them that hain't got none." Levi asked a great many questions about the money, and the hole, which uncle Nathan, hoping to find his money, answered. There was no evidence to fasten the crime upon any one. The facts that appeared were, that the money, in four bags, had been deposited in the cavity; that, an hour before the fire, the miser had assured himself the gold was safe; that, after the fire, the board had been found in its place as before, but the gold was gone. A dozen of the neighbors, at least, had been into the room, and Dock Vincent and Mat Mogmore had been the last to leave. Mr. Fairfield was sure that neither Dock nor Mat knew he had any money in the house. There was no good reason for supposing they, any more than any other of the neighbors, had taken the gold. After a long and careful examination of the premises, and a patient inquiry into all the circumstances, nothing could be brought forward to implicate any person in the robbery. Levi was not willing to believe yet that the gold had been stolen. He went down cellar, and surveyed the timbers under the hole, hoping that the bags had dropped through; but he could not find them. He could not determine whether or not there was any connection between the fire and the robbery; but Mr. Fairfield in- | sisted that some one he did not say Levi now-intended to burn the house, so as to cover up the crime, or at least afford an opportunity to commit the theft. This was the defect which the owner had repaired. "There is a great hole in the chimney," said Levi. "I know there is; but I stopped that up a month ago. I hadn't no mortar nor nothin', and I just nailed a board over the hole." "That's the way the fire took," added Levi, wondering at the carelessness of his uncle. "I didn't suppose there was any heat up here, twenty foot from the fire," replied the old man, sheepishly. "Aunt Susan had a rousing fire in the oven. The wind was pretty fresh, and I suppose the sparks caught on the dry board. It is clear enough to me that no one set the house on fire." "I suppose they didn't, then; but somebody stole my money. Mebbe you'll prove that nobody didn't steal it." "I am willing to take your word for that; " and the miser's visible sufferings were all-sufficient to convince any person that the money was gone, whether any one had stolen it or not. Levi tried in vain to obtain a clew to the lost treasure. He knew of no one that had visited the house during the fire that was bad enough to steal, unless it was Dock Vincent; but it was not right to suspect even him of the crime without some evidence. Neither Levi nor his uncle saw how Dock could have taken off the board, removed the bags, and then restored the covering, while there were so many people in the house. Dock Vincent, after his discharge from the state prison, had gone to New York, where he had been employed as the mate of a steamer. Six months before the story opens, his brother, "How could any one set the fire in the residing in Boston, had died, and as the deroof?" asked Levi. "They might have gone up there, as you did," replied the old man, rather malignantly. "Let us go up and see how the fire took," added Levi. "Aunt Susan had a big fire in the oven." "It couldn't ketch afire up there if she did," replied uncle Nathan, as he followed his nephew up the ladder. Some of the boards and shingles had been burned through, but the rafters were only charred. Levi went up to the chimney and examined the wood-work near it. The house was a very old one, and had been built upon until its present proportions had been reached. The chimney, where the fire had taken, was in the most ancient part, and the bricks were laid in clay. Levi found that three or four of them, on one of the inde corners, had dropped out. ceased had no family, his property, amounting to twenty-one thousand dollars, had been equally divided among his two brothers and one sister. Dock fully believed that seven thousand dollars on Cape Ann would entirely wipe out the disgrace of having served a term in the state prison, and he returned to Rockport, dressed in a nice suit of black. Dock was mistaken; seven thousand dollars would not varnish his character so that good men would associate with him. He blustered and swelled, and declared that he had been taken up for nothing; that this was not a free country; and that he was a better man than thousands in town who had never been to the state prison. He never forgave Levi for thwarting his plans, and swore roundly that he would be the ruin of him and of Mr. Watson. The best friend Dock had was Nathan Fair field, and the miser was not willing to believe | had always lived, even when he was in New York. The end of the headland curved round so as to leave a portion of the water behind it protected from the force of the sea, thus forming a sheltered landing-place. Off this point lay The Starry Flag, and on the rocks where the boatmen usually embarked were several skiffs, and among them Dock Vincent's dory, which Mr. Fairfield was to use. Across the end of the headland, a few rods from the extreme point, was a natural chasm in the rocks, through which the water flowed at high tide. It was about ten feet wide, and rather more than this in depth. Across it a plank had been placed for the convenience of fishermen and others. On the next headland, which terminated in Mike's Point, was the new summer residence of Mr. Watson. He had made a landing-pier, which was available at half tide; but Levi kept his boat at the old moorings, because the place was sheltered from the violence of the northeast winds, and it was less than half a mile across to the house where he usually took in his passengers. Probably the money the wretch had lost was not a fifth part of his fortune, and he was in no more danger of coming to want than the sea was of being dried up. But he felt as though he had lost all; and if he had been stripped of everything, he could hardly have suffered more. He felt poor, and wanted to earn money in some way. The dog-fish season had opened favorably, and he was actually pre-goes to a funeral. He had been a fisherman in paring to go into the business of catching them. Dock Vincent had promised him the use of a dory, for he could not afford to buy ore, and he had taken Levi's old lines and repaired them for use. Mr. Fairfield groaned and sighed all day long while he worked upon his fishing-lines and his trolls. He could not tell who had stolen his money, and in his hatred of his nephew he still persisted in suspecting him. There was no proof, and he could do nothing but believe that Levi was the thief. It was useless to say anything or do anything, for Levi was so popular that justice could not be had. The lines, the troll, and the bait were all ready, and the old man carried them down to the landing-place where Dock had left the dory. Along the shore of this part of Cape Ann there is a succession of rocky peninsulas, extending out into the sea. Between these are the beaches, stretching in semicircles from bluff to bluff, as they have been fashioned by the mighty waves which roll in from the open ocean. On these sandy shores the billows chant their solemn melody all day and all night long, and break with sharper pitch and fiercer swell upon the jagged rocks that form the headlands. On the road, but a few rods from Mr. Fairfield's, and near one of these peninsulas, was the house of Dock Vincent, where his family Mr. Fairfield went down to the dory, and put his fishing-gear on board. He did it as a man his younger days, but it was a bitter necessity, in his view, which now compelled him to resume it when he was old and stiff. While he was stowing the bait and lines in the skiff, Dock Vincent came down to see him. He had laid aside his suit of black, and now wore a full seaman's rig. "Well, Squire Fairfield, have you heard anything from your money yet?" demanded Dock, as he seated himself on a rock. "Not a thing; and 'taint likely I ever shall, nuther,” replied Mr. Fairfield, with a most distressing expression on his face. "Haven't you any idea what has become of it?" "Not the leastest grain in the world. It's gone, and that's all I know about it. I did think Levi took it, and I hain't got done thinkin' so yet." "What made you think he took it?" asked Dock, with no little interest manifested on his ugly face. 66 Well, he come to the house when I wan't in, though I was close by and see him go in. He went up garret, and got out a little sawmill he made. I went up to the house, and was jest goin' to see where he was; but I stopped a minute in the kitchen to tell my wife she was wastin' the wood, and Levi went out afore I see him. A little while arter, the fire bruk out, and arter that my money was |