Queer Stories for Boys and Girls

uld tell just what Mr. Blake carried his cane for. I am sure it did

dog. It was a great black stick of solid ebony, with a box-wood head, and I think Mr. Blake carried it for company. And it had a face, like that of an old man, carved on one side of the box-wood head. Mr. Blake kept it ringing in a hearty way upon the pavem

showed themselves standing in straight rows now that the trees were bare. And Purser, Pond & Co.'s great factory on the brook in the valley below was plainly to be seen, with it

," thought the minister, as he shut the parsonage gate. And when he struck the cane sharply on the stones it answered him cheerily: "It's a

f boys waiting for him. They had already heard the cane remar

Mr. Blake," sai

d the minister, and he clapped "Old Ebony" down o

, you know, telling a fellow,-a boy, I mean--" Just here he stopped talking; for though he kept on scratching vigorously, no more words

the minister laughed, and the cane could

laughing, and Sammy had to do the talking himself. He was a stumpy boy, who had stopped of

wasn't any harm in your telling-why, we wanted to know what kind

The teachers will talk it over at their next meeting. They

so many dough-nuts, ginger-snaps, tea-cakes, apple-dumplings, pumpkin-pies, jelly-tarts, puddings, ice-creams, raisins, nuts, and other things of the sort. Other people stared at him in wonder. He was never too full to take anything that was offered him, and at parties his weak and foolish mother wa

omething pleasant,

d stumpy littl

away; and all the way down the block Old Ebo

had once been inhabited by genteel people. Why they ever built it in that shape, or why they daubed it with yellow paint, is more than I can tell. But it had gone out of fashion

you, Aunt

d the sound of yer cane afore you come in. I'm mis'able these yer days, t

ed woman meant to say that s

buy it by the bucketful, and that's mighty high at fifteen cents a bucket. An' pears like we couldn't never git nothin' ahead on account of my roomatiz. Whe

lake went in to see Peter S

a purty consid'able heartache under my jacket fer all that. Now, there's that Ben of mine," and here Sitles pointed to a restless little fellow of nine years old, whose pants had been patched and pieced until they had more colors than Joseph's coat. He was barefoot, ragged, and looked hungry, as some poor children always do

king Peter?" sa

t my fingers? 'Tain't no sort o' use to butt my head agin the machines, when I ain't got no eyes nother. It's like a goat trying it on a locomotive. Ef I could

would a broom-machine cos

d be jest exactly seventy cents more'n I could afford to pay. For the money my ole woman gits fer

r him. Something must be done. The minister was sure

s the q

er every time. When Mr. Blake and the walking-stick got to the market-house, just as they turned off from Milk Street into the busier Main Street, the cane changed its tune and begun to say, "But what-but what-b