tiniest little eggs that ever mortal bantam laid. My happiness seemed now complete. All the boys and all the girls, for miles around, came to see the wonderful egg. I cackled almost as lustily over it as Bantie did, and kept up the cackling a great deal longer. How sorry I was for a poor boy who had no bantam chicken of his own. I really wondered how he could be happy at all, and play, and laugh, and frolic, with the rest of the boys.

I am not sure but I used to go out fifty times a day to see how Bantie was getting along, and whether she wanted any thing. She knew well enough what a pet she was. She had a way, I recollect, of showing her regard for me which was quite peculiar. I never could fondle her, and feed her, and make much of her in any way, without her taking pains to teach me that she did n't court any of these favors, that she only permitted them out of kindness to me, and that she was mighty condescending to me, considering what a high-born damsel she was, and how large a part of the globe was proud to do

homage to her. I saw this trick of hers, and, strange as it may seem to you, reader, I liked her all the better for it, just as poor Barnaby Rudge hugged his noisy raven only the more lovingly when he put on haughty airs, gave knowing winks, and looked every inch a lord. Oh, how deeply in love my simple heart was with little Bantie. Once, I recollect, when Deacon Strong told me he wanted to buy her, and asked me what I would sell her for, I was so angry with him— yes, angry; I suppose I thought my feeling was grief then, but it was n't, it was anger, the more shame for me that I cried for one hour, and sulked for the greater part of another.

"Frank," said my kind and gentle mother to me one day, "I want to talk to you.”

"Well, mamma." I was always ready for a story, and did n't doubt there was a good one ready.

"What should you do if Bantam should die ?"

"I should die too." How my heart throbbed at the idea that the thing was possible. I honestly thought I should die if Bantie did. "But, my dear, Bantie can not live always. All chickens must die some time or other. Bantie must die like the rest of them."

These words made me thoughtful and sad. The more I thought over the matter, though, the more I was convinced that I should not live one day longer than Bantie did, and I told my mother so. She did not laugh at me, and ridicule me, and make me ashamed of my. self, so that I would have looked around for a place where I could have hidden my head. Some mothers would have taken that coursemine was too wise to take it. She took quite another one. She tried to convince me that this world had a great many other attractions in it beside this pet chicken, and that it would not be half so sad and lonely if the little pet should be taken out of it. Before she had done talking in this strain, I began to think that I might possibly live a little while longer after Bantie left me. I didn't know whether it would read well on my tomb-stone that I died for a chicken, though it was the nicest little chicken in the wide world.

"Well, Frank," said my mother, softly and tenderly, pressing me down to her bosom as she spoke, "Bantie is dead now. Poor boy! I'm very, very sorry she is dead."

I was only half prepared for these tidings. I shed rivers-small rivers, miniature rivers-of tears, and after the tears had stopped flowing, for no other reason than because the fountain was dried up, I sobbed as if my heart was broken, till I grieved myself to sleep.

Poor Bantie! her end was a very tragic one.

She was strutting,

as usual, in the yard, her little soul quite satisfied with itself, very proud and very happy, when, quick as thought, a great hawk darted down into the poultry-yard, snapped up little Bantie in his talons, and soared off with her. My father saw the thief in the very act, though, when he was ready to shoot him, the hawk was ready to laugh at all guns in general, and my father's gun in particular. I puzzled my brains a great deal as to Bantie's feelings while she was flying away up into the blue sky, in the arms of the great hawk. I wondered if she felt much afraid at first; whether the hawk "took her up tenderly, and lifted her with care;" whether poor Bantie found herself dizzy so high up in the air; what sort of a home the old hawk went to; whether there were any young hawks, and what little Bantie thought of them, in case there were any; how the dear little creature must have felt when she found, at last, what she had been carried off for; and whether she thought of me in her last moments. It was a great grief to me, this loss of the little bantam; and it was a long time, and not until I had shed a great many tears, be fore I could think of my pet with dry eyes.

People, as they grow older, gradually change all the time. We have not the same feelings in respect to such little pets as my poor bantam, which we used to have in our childhood. I think that on this account some really good men and women can not feel much sympathy for a little child when she has lost a bird, or a squirrel, or a dog, or a doll. I have sometimes thought it might be so with me but for the memory, almost as fresh as if the event happened yesterday, of these great sorrows-for they were great to me thenof my own childhood.

THE CAREFUL SPORTSMAN.

Ir is n't every one who is so extremely careful in shooting as an Irishman living somewhere out West.

"Mike," asked a man who was watching this sportsman's movements, "why don't you fire at those ducks-don't you see you have got the whole flock before your gun

"I know I have, but when I get a good aim at one, two or three others will swim right up between it and me."

USED to wonder, sometimes, how the little birds could get along through the winter. When the air was keen enough to nip off the end of a man's nose, how could they keep from freezing to death? When the ground was covered with snow, and they had no store which they had gathered for such a time, how could they keep from starving to death? The matter is plainer to me now. The old Major would have been a very poor scholar, had he not learned something in all the long years which have passed since he was a boy. I see now that God, in His wisdom, has wrapped the birds in a nice warm cloak, and fitted them for the rough changes of an out-door

life.

Another thing. He has promised that there shall be seed-time and harvest, and the heat of summer as well as the cold of winter, till the end of the world. This is not for man alone; the birds come in for some of the benefit too. They get—and shall continue to get while the world stands their share of what the earth produces in the warm summer-time. When winter comes, you may see them picking seeds along fences, or wherever the ground happens to be bare; or you may see them gleaning among the cattle around haystacks, or picking up the scattered grains around barns; or, if driven to extremities, they sometimes draw near to houses, and flutter against the windows, when God puts it into the heart of the good little children to throw them a few crumbs, or something of the sort. In ways like these, His providence feeds them. He never made a creature without designing to have it get a living in some way. I have a mind to show you now some verses which I have written on this subject. Here they are:

When fields are green and skies are warm, | For them, nor all for man alone,

The birds rejoice and sing;

Nor for the time of wind and storm

A grain in garner bring.

Yet when the storms of winter wail,
Nor fields are longer bare,
There's not a bird in wood or vale,

That seeks in vain its fare.

While He who shaped the mighty spheres,
Still minds their great affairs,
To forms minute His love appears,
And for their wants prepares.
These cheerful tribes that fill the air
He grants a voice to praise;
In richer robes than monarchs wear,
Their fragile forms arrays.

He rolls the seasons round;
With thoughts of them His hand has sown

The plants that clothe the ground.

While nature, then, in order moves,

And fields produce their seed,
The birds that sport in summer groves
Shall find for winter's need.

Here, then, these anxious hearts to shame,
Let faith serenely rest;

The God who formed our nobler frame,
Still bears us on His breast.

While o'er our heads the sun shall glow,
His goodness shall endure;
Shall still our daily bread bestow,
And make our water sure.

THE OLD MAJOR.

MEN AND STATUES.

SOMEBODY was asked, "What is the difference between great men and their statues ?" "Statues seem greater, the nearer you go to them; great men appear less, the nearer you approach them."