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VOL. VIL . JAMES ELVERSON, } No We Qiner NINTH
Publisher,
POLLY’S EASTER EGGS.
BY MARY T. WAGGAMAN,
Polly lived in Swampoodle. It is not a
pretty name, nor, a dozen years ago, was
Swampoodle a pretty place; ‘ragged
edges’? never are, and Swampoodle was
one of the ragged edges of the beautiful
capital city, whose broad. streets and
stately buildings are the nation’s pride.
But the beauty and grandeur did not
reach out as far as Swampoodie; it had
only bare commons, where vicious-look-
ing goats browsed on old boots, and Jook-
ed around for some one to attack; and
narrow alleys, where scrawny hens. pick-
ed up a precarious living; and muddy
streets, where thin cows wandered home
at evening “to milkmaids who were gene-
rally old and withered and ugly, and not
like the pretty maid of the nursery rhymes
at all.
One of these old milkmaids was Polly’s
grandmother, and Polly and granny, a
red cow and three hens lived quite socia-
bly in a little house, consisting of two
‘rooms anda cellar, which, being general-
ly full of water, ‘didn’t count.”
“Shure, though, it would be the illi-
gant place for ducks,” said granny, peer-
ing down into the black depths, one
spring morning. ‘‘ How they could swim !
I think I’ll buy a half-dozen eggs in the
market beyant, and see if ould Biddy
will hatch them out.”
“She won’t,’”? answered Polly, who had
sharp blue eyes and a little, freckled nose,
very much turned up at the end, “She’d
pick holes in ’em, I know.”
“Well, mebbe she would,” said gran, ;
with a resigned sigh. “She’s a knowledg-
able craythur fora hin, We'll let her lay
on thin, and say nothing about the
hatching—Faster’s coming.”” |
“And you said I might have a dozen all |
to myself,” interrupted Polly, quickly. “I
airnt thim, ye know, gran, selling milk.” |
“So ye did,” answered gran ; ‘but don’t
it seem the sin and shame, Polly, to be
smashing wp ould Biddy’s foine fresh
eggs wid thim dhirty b’ys at the corner?”
m not going to smash thim,” said |
Polly. I’m going to dye thim. Mrs. |
- Flynn gave me some bits of calico that
bite out. And whin ‘they’re dyed, Pm |
going to roll thim wid the rest of the
childhre, Easter Monday.”
“Well, well, have it yer own way,”
said gran. “Shure, it’s little of the
childhre’s sport ye have seen, ye poor,
mitherless girl!”
And Polly had it her own way, as she
generally did with easy-going old gran.
Old Biddy knew her duty, and did it
well. For twelve days before Easter her
triumphant cackle sounded every morn-
ing from. the old straw hat, nailed to the
fence, that served as a nest, and the first
note brought out Polly, bare-headed and
often bare-legged, to seize her treasure
before it could be stolen by them ‘‘foxes
of Rainey’s,” the boys next door.
ey lisse,
i N
A dozen eggs meant a great deal in the
Finnegan family—they meant the pinch
of sugar in gran’s “tay” and the pinch of
“baecy” in her pipe; but for love of
Polly, good old gran said nothing about
either until the promised number was
complete. .
Then there came an evening of great
excitement, when the eggs were boiled,
Polly, flushed and breathless, watching
every bubble in the old tin kettle, and
Biddy standing on one leg in the window,
and surveying the performance with evi-
“MR. MALONE DODGED JUST IN TIME TO LET IT NOOK ON THE HAT
AND
[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by Jamxs Exyruson, in the Oftice of the Librarian of Cougress, at Washington, D. 0.)
PHILADELPHIA, APRIL 9, 1887.
RAINS
Girks2s
= ‘
NER EN SIAC OME
SX 5 een
WY ( fe
dent pride. The eggs came out beauti-
fully—four scarlet, four traced with deli-
cate blue flowers, four banded with gor-
geous stripes of green and gold.
“T niver seen purtier ones,’ said gran,
as Polly spread them out tenderly on an
old cracked plate. ‘“Ye’ll bate all the
childhre on eggs this year, Polly, my
ear.”
Gran’s words were still echoing in
Polly’s ears, as she tied on her little red-
worsted hood, on Easter Monday morn-
ing, and with her dozen eggs, carefully
Hi
PON THE EXUITED GROUP UNSEEN.’
TERMS: { 80 PER ANNUM,
Sie) oo S
No. 19.
IN ADVANCE.
packed in a little basket on her arm,
started off for the Capitol grounds, that
for this day were given up to the children
alone.
They were coming in. every direction.
There were pale children and rosy child-
ren, fair children and -dark children,
children dressed in calico and gingham,
in velvet and fur.
Some came in cars, some in carriages,
some trolling along like Polly on their
little, patched shoes ; but each and every
SS
SS
st !
Rei? Vitti,
Rae
Hinge ©
HM
Ss,
OF A RATHER THIOKSET, GRIZZLE-BEARDED GENTLEMAN WHO HAD COME 4
ee TT -
Se A ~ : .
