Various

“ Uncle Dick had, when he chose, an unlimited capacity for silence.
"Yes," he said at length, "it was one night in the middle of the Atlantic on the deck of a sinking ship. There's a saying, boys, about gaining the whole world and losing one's own soul. Well, I gained then my soul, though I lost my fortune. And it was all through my sister's grapes." ”

“ Uncle Dick stopped a moment, then continued:
"I don't wish, boys, to put myself forward as worse than I was, or better. People find their own level pretty well in this world. It's no good either to puff yourself up as a saint, or go about crying yourself down as a miserable sinner. In either case you think a great deal too much about yourself, which is as harmful a thing as can happen to any man. ”

“ As it is, the water begins to freeze at the surface, and the layer of ice keeps the water below it from freezing; for though the ice is itself cold, a wall of it will keep out the cold as well as a wall of stone or brick.
The force with which water expands in freezing is almost irresistible. The freezing of half a gill of water in a confined space will lift a weight of several tons. A thick iron bomb-shell filled with water will be split open by the freezing of the liquid as it would be by a charge of gunpowder. ”

“ The tiniest, prettiest little railroad you could imagine."
"A toy railroad?" queried Bert.
"Not at all; a veritable railroad running all around the store, filled with freight, passengers, and—money."
"Oh, aunty, 'upon your word and honor,' honest, now, was it a real true railroad with cars on it?" cried Harry. ”

“ Lee was always "too tired" or too "blue" to be "bothered," and while Mildred had learned a habit of self-restraint and reserve, the younger children looked to her for every suggestion, so that Milly felt quite capable of governing her own actions when she was allowed to govern theirs. By the time the young girl awoke, she had, as she thought, reasoned herself into a belief that the most foolish mistake of her life was in letting that gray silk slip out of her possession. ”

“ A large part of the soil of our world has been made by the freezing of water in the cracks and crevices of rocks. Mountains have thus been rent asunder and pulverized, and the work goes on every winter. And after the soil has been formed, it is broken up and crumbled by the action of frosts and thaws. Jack Frost is a good helper to the ploughman and the farmer.
He works also on a grander scale than this. In many parts of the earth, as you know, there are great rivers of ice called glaciers. ”

“ He hands fifty cents to the young woman clerk. What does she do? She takes the car down off the track, using a long-handled contrivance like a fork to do it. She places Mr. Doggy—Carlo, if you please—in the lower wire cage, the money and her cash-book in the top car; then places the car and its baggage on the down-town track, and away it rushes. You see, one end of the track is higher than the other, making a gentle descent, down which the little car glides. ”

“ I wish I wasn't goin', after all, 'cause it don't seem a bit like a good time now; but I s'pose I must, 'cause I promised to, an' 'cause the candy man has got all my things."
The big tears had begun to roll down Toby's cheeks, and as he ceased speaking the monkey reached out one little paw, which Toby took as earnestly as if it had been done purposely to console him.
"You're real good, you are," continued Toby; "an' I hope I shall see you real often, for it seems to me now, when there hain't any folks around, as if you was the only friend I've got in this great big world. ”

“ Water contracts until it is cooled down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit—that is, 40 degrees of our common thermometers, or 8 degrees above the freezing-point—and then it expands until it freezes. This is a wise provision of nature. If water kept on contracting with cold, it would begin to freeze at the bottom, where the coldest portions of it would settle by their weight, and this would go on until it was all frozen, so that in winter our lakes and rivers would become solid masses of ice. ”

“ My grandpa sends us Harper's Weekly and Young People, and papa says, "It is the best reading we could have for our little ones." We children hope never to miss a number of our dear Young People. We keep them all nice, and some time we will have them bound.
If all the little folks who read this paper could come out here, we could get them plenty of curiosities. The winters here are very quiet, but in the summer the town is full of strangers. ”

“ I want to tell the readers of Young People how to make a bran pudding for the Christmas dinner. It is the nicest kind of pudding. Select some little gifts, pretty or ridiculous, for each person expected. ”

“ Our puzzle contributors will please remember that a puzzle, in order to be accepted, must be not only good, but must have a solution not already used in Young People, and contain no slang, and no obsolete words. Read over your contributions and correct them carefully before sending them to Young People, as the misuse of a single letter spoils an otherwise excellent puzzle. ”

“ It's awful when a feller feels the way I do, an' when he don't seem to want anything to eat. Now if you'll stick to me, I'll stick to you, an' then it won't be half so bad when we feel this way."
During this speech Toby had still clung to the little brown paw, which the monkey now withdrew, and continued to gaze into the boy's face.
"The fellers all say I don't amount to anything," sobbed Toby, "an' Uncle Dan'l says I don't, an' I s'pose they know; but I tell you I feel just as bad, now that I'm goin' away from them all, as if I was as good as any of them." ”

“ The change from water to ice is a familiar one to us, but to the ignorant natives of the tropics it seems almost like a miracle. It is only within a few years that ice has been imported into these tropical countries, and at first it was as great a curiosity as solid mercury or quicksilver would be here. ”

“ MY SISTER'S GRAPES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."
Perhaps you might not think Uncle Dick a "gentleman"—Aunt Emma did not, I know, though she kept her mind to herself, being his brother's widow, and the prudent mother of many children. Uncle Dick lived with them; that is, if he could be said to live anywhere, being always on the move, never liking to stay long in [Pg 98] one place, and somewhat restless-minded, as those are who have passed all their life in rambling about the world. ”

“ It is a dessert very much better than plum-pudding for little folks.
Bessie Guyton.
Glasgow, Scotland.
I get Young People every week, and I am so pleased when it comes! I liked "The Moral Pirates" very much.
I have a brother a year younger than I am, and we each have a pet cat. His is all black except its paws, which are white, so we call it White Socks. Mine is all gray, and its name is Jenny. We have a very pretty little collie dog named Tyne.
I have four dolls, and a black doll for their nurse. I have never been to school. We have a governess. ”

“ In winter the water-pipes in our houses are often burst by the freezing of their contents. In some parts of England advantage is taken of this property of water in the slate quarries. Large blocks of slate are placed where the rain will fall upon their edges. The water works its way between the layers, freezes, and splits the mass into thin plates. ”

“ The least change in the temperature of any material produces a change in its size, though not in its weight; and if one part is heated or cooled more than another, the shape of the whole must be somewhat altered. ”

“ Requests for exchange are often accompanied by lengthy conditions, but we can not make room to print them, and shall invariably leave them for the exchangers to settle among themselves. In sending specimens great care should always be taken to mark them distinctly, and to state the locality from whence they came, otherwise the recipient may become the possessor of some valuable curiosity, and be unaware of its character. ”

“ The readers of Young People, whose letters give assurance of the pleasure and instruction they have received from the paper during the past year, will doubtless be glad to put others in the way of sharing in their enjoyment. ”

“ It's a commonplace saying, but one can't hear it too often, or remember it too well, that whatever else we have, we never can have but one mother. If she's a good one, make the most of her; if a middling one, put up with her; if a bad one, let her alone, and hold your tongue. You know whether I have any need to hold my tongue about your grandmother.
"But I can't talk about her, or about that Christmas-day. We did not go to church, and I doubt if we ate much Christmas dinner ”

“ Each car was about eight inches long, just big enough for a couple of fairies to ride in. They were the cutest little things, and ran along their shining roads like magic; no horses, pulleys, nor wires to draw them. Some of them went right to the dépôt without stopping; others stopped at their stations just as the big 'elevated' cars do. ”

“ Fred W.—The subscription price of Harper's Monthly, Weekly, and Young People, to one address, for one year, is eight dollars and fifty cents.
F. F.—We can not tell you what to buy for your mother's Christmas present, for we do not know as well as you, who are near her, what kind of a present would please her the best. But we would advise you to think very carefully, and if you can remember any pretty thing she has expressed a wish for, or any little comfort which you suspect she has gone without in order that she might get something for you, try to give her that. ”

“ We must again call the attention of our correspondents to the fact that the Post-office Box can not be made a medium for buying or selling curiosities, stamps, or articles of any kind. Neither can we print requests for the address of any correspondent.
The requests for exchange should be made as short as possible. We can not publish lists of eggs, stamps, minerals, and other things; but would advise boys and girls to make out a neat list of the articles they have to exchange, and those they desire in return, and have copies always ready to send in answer to the letters they receive. ”

“ The double track commences at the north, and sweeps around the store till it comes to the south end of the box which serves as the dépôt. This railway, made of bright steel, is just high enough from the floor to let a tall man pass under without knocking his hat off. These little cages reminded me of the car of a balloon, they swung along so airily. ”

“ A young lad hands Mr. Carlo over to the wrapping clerk, and in a second or two, all wrapped from top to toe in tissue-paper, he makes his appearance in car D, bound on the up-town track for Station D. He makes the trip in ten seconds."
"But what makes him stop just at Station D?" inquires Harry.
"A small steel peg under the car, called a brake, is fixed just where it will fit in a notch on the steel road, and every station car is provided with one." ”

“ The tires of carriage wheels before being put on are heated in a fire, in order that their contraction in cooling may make them bind more tightly. On a railroad a little space is left between the ends of the rails to allow them to expand. ”

“ The river is frozen hard, and the skaters took some of us riding on the ice. We had a splendid time. Afterward we went back to the hills, and built a large bonfire. The flames were about eight feet high, and we hurrahed and shouted. We went home about five o'clock.
I can not express in words how much I like Young People. The stories and pictures are elegant.
Will you please tell me which was the first railroad in the United States?
Colmore S.
The first railway in the United States was constructed in 1826 from the quarries of Quincy, Massachusetts, to the nearest tide-water. ”

“ The mice have red eyes and pink feet. The mother mouse is very kind to the little ones. She picks them up in her mouth as a cat does her kittens. They are not large enough to eat yet, but the big ones eat cookies and apples, and drink milk. We have a tin cage to keep them in. ”

“ Mules were used for drawing back the empty cars. The first passenger railway was the Baltimore and Ohio, fifteen miles of which were opened in 1830. During the first year the cars were drawn by horses, but in 1831 the first locomotive built in America was put on the track. It had an upright instead of a horizontal boiler. On its trial trip it drew an open car at the rate of eighteen miles an hour, from Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills. The next passenger line built was the Mohawk and Hudson, from Albany to Schenectady. ”

“ They like orange seeds very much. They will also eat fruit of all kinds, and sometimes will bite a bit of cracker like a parrot. You can also give them English walnuts for variety. In Cuba large flocks of parrakeets, ninety or a hundred birds together, often settle on the orange-trees, and make sad havoc with the ripe fruit, which they tear to pieces to find the seeds. ”