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"THE QUEEN SAID, IN A CLEAR VOICE, PLOP PLAKES MAY NOW SHOUT HOORAY' "

It needed no wisdom or knowledge to do what that boy did-mere school-boy learning!" He took up his wand and stalked out of the door.

"That boy does n't know anything about magic," said the magician in the purple robe, contemptuously.

"He used strength," said the good magician, thoughtfully, "and brains. Perhaps strength combined with brains is magic."

"I don't think so!" snapped the magician in the purple robe.

Katy climbed down from her father's knee. "Just look," she exclaimed, "at this horrid stuff on the fire! Help me pour it out, please, somebody." She took hold of one handle of the pot, the boy grasped the other, and they promptly emptied the magician's brew, so carefully compounded, out of the window.

Patrick," said Katy, proudly. "Oh dear! look at this floor and the hearthstone!" She seized a brush and began to sweep with such energy that her short little red skirts busily swung to and fro as she did it.

Plop Plakes could remain hidden no longer. He jumped out of the saddle-bag. "And brains, did you say? And brains and brains!" he shouted gleefully. "I was the brains!"

Katy dropped her broom in delighted surprise. "A real fairy!" she said, kneeling beside him. "He has gold corners in his eyes! See! He is a real fairy."

But the magician knew better, although he tactfully said nothing. Plop Plakes thought this very kind of him.

Then Patrick explained that although Katy's hand was his, the wish belonged to Plop Plakes.

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The magician handed the wand to him. Plop Plakes held it in both hands, his feet wide apart, his hat on one side.

"I wish," he said, loudly, "that the wicked magician's power may be taken away from him, forever!"

As soon as Plop Plakes had said this, they heard a howl outside, and through the window they could see the wicked magician running down the road, his black embroidered robe grasped in each hand.

Plop Plakes sitting on the soft place between the donkey's ears, went home with Patrick, while Katy rode on the splendid white saddle behind him.

He rather dreaded meeting Minthy Boo and Putcherly and the fairies, now that he had to come back without any je ne sais quoi at all, after he had vowed so determinedly that he would find one. After saying good-by to Katy and Patrick, he slipped away through a clover-field. In a little while he saw Minthy Boo coming toward him. She was walking slowly, brushing the long grass to one side with a stick. He tried to jump behind the stump of a tree, but she caught sight of him at once.

"Oh, Plop Plakes!" she called, happily, running toward him. "I'm so glad to see you! Tell me, did you find any?"

Plop Plakes hung his head. "No," he said, sadly. "I could n't."

Minthy Boo laughed. "That 's all right, because what do you think?-the queen is terribly sorry that she did n't invite you, and she has been so unhappy about it ever since. She says, if only you will come back in time, she won't have a small and refined coronation after all. Just a jolly one, where we can all have fun."

"Hooray!" shouted Plop Plakes.

"There are about twenty invitations for you now," continued Minthy Boo. "The fairies have been delivering them all day. Every time they come back from searching everywhere for you, they deliver another invitation."

So Plop Plakes went to the coronation after all, and he never had such a good time before! He whirled the lady fairies about until they gasped for breath. He ate dozens of violet water-ices. He sang and tumbled in time to the music, and at that thrilling moment when the queen's sparkling crown was raised and held over her shining, newly shampooed hair, Plop Plakes received the greatest honor of his life. The queen paused, then said, in a clear voice, “Plop Plakes may now shout Hooray."

So Plop Plakes, intensely excited, shouted "Hooray" with all his might, and afterward he felt as if a string, tied around him too tight, had suddenly been cut.

In about seventeen years the wicked magician, as all his power had been taken away from him, turned good and taught school in the village.

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MY DEAR LITTLE FRENCH FRIEND: I CALL you "little," I should explain, more because of the affection in the word than because you really are little. Indeed, the photograph which the gentleman of the committee so kindly transmitted to me shows you to be a grave-eyed young lady of perhaps more than thirteen, while your letter shows you to be even older than that, certainly older in serious ways than my own daughter of thirteen-older in experience, and, I fear, in suffering and sacrifice. And let me say frankly that this letter of yours, just received, is both intelligent and charming; and I regard as a privilege the opportunity you make for me to tell you something about the country of which I have the honor to be a citizen, the United States of America.

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Well, to explain: we are what our history shows us to be. Certainly that must be true! A nation is like a person in this: he is what he does; also he is apt to be what he has done.

In the first place, then, the Indians were here, upon these enormous tracts of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries there came colonists, prevailingly English, to the Atlantic coast, hardy and brave and industrious people. In many places the tribes' of Indians sold them the rights to the land, and in others wars arose, and the Indians were gradually driven westward from the coast, where the English colonies more and more securely established themselves. But in England, during the latter part of the eighteenth century, there was a king, of German descent, and he wished to put heavy taxes upon the colonists in America and rule them without allowing them to have a voice in the government. The colonists were not so meek as the king thought; they were independent in spirit, and they made up their minds to be rid of any rule

but their own, so that each man of them should have not only freedom from kings, but freedom from all manner of oppression. The colonists fought a long, hard war for this freedom they so much desired; and in the midst of their trials a beautiful thing happened: the young Marquis de La Fayette, a Frenchman who cared more for the ideal of liberty than he did for his wealth, his comfort, or his life, came across the sea to help those new Americans, and became a general in their small, hard-fighting army.

The colonists had other help from France, help which their descendants could never forget,-and at last France openly joined in the war, sending forces to fight, both on sea and on land; and, with this great aid, the revolutionists were able to win the war and their complete independence.

They adopted the free form of government known as a republic, without kings or hereditary officers of any kind. No class of people were granted special privileges; all citizens not only stood alike before the laws, but each one had as much to do with making the laws as any other. Always the ideal the Republic strove to attain was freedom for every citizen, so that in this country no normal human being should be obliged to act against either his conscience or his inclination, and that all citizens might have equal opportunities.

Now, those who made the Republic were not selfish; the doors were thrown wide open to all people who might wish to come from other countries and take up citizenship. The land which in time came under the domination of the American people was vast; east and west it was the whole width of the American continent, with thousands of miles of sea-coast for ports and fishing-grounds; there were forests of big timber, forests broader than some of the countries of Europe; there were mountain ranges more massive than the Alps and laden with coal and iron and with silver and gold; there were gigantic deposits of copper, of lead, of every other mineral, and of oil and gas; but the greatest of all in richness was the rich earth

itself, the millions and millions of acres of fertile land for corn and wheat, for all the cereals, and pasturage for such herds of cattle and sheep as the world never knew before.

You have heard, you say, my dear, of the "rich Americans," and how the United States is the "rich man's country." In a way, this is true. The American people are the richest people because they have been industrious in developing such vast tracts of the rich land. And all the while, you know, anybody who wished could come here and share in the development and in the prosperity. The immigrant had as much chance to grow rich as the native had. It all depended only on his industry and his intelligence. Education was open to him; everything was open to him, if only he were willing. And hordes of immigrants did come, and shared in the products of the rich soil and became Americans.

You may have heard somewhere that the Americans grew rich by other means than by their industry and the richness of the American soil; and of course it is true that here and there there were men among them who by cunning and corruption got more than their proper share; but the common prosperity of the people is a fact of overwhelmingly more importance than that a few individuals have misused for gain the trust of citizenship. I am a kind of Socialist, myself, my dear, but I believe, with the unfortunate Russian lady, more in the socialism that tries to make poor people rich than in that which tries to make the rich people poor. Almost all the richer people in America have won their riches in open and fair competition; they have won by industry or intelligence or economy, or all three; and there are indeed very, very few poor people who need to remain poor if they display normal energy or intelligence. The advance has been so great and the opportunities are so universal that almost all of those who consider themselves poor to-day can have more comforts in their lives and better education for their minds than were within the reach of those who were considered "rich" fifty or sixty years ago.

Of the people who came to America from all over the world, many came because they wanted the freedom of thought and speech and action prevailing here; many came to escape the period of military service which was necessary in Europe because of the ambitions of autocratic governments; and many indeed came because of the richness of the American soil and the equal opportunities for everybody to share in the riches produced from it. America was in truth a land, as we say, of "peace and plenty"; and yet, of course, we have not been able to escape

wars.

After our Revolutionary War we came again into a quarrel with Britain, and fought what we call the "War of 1812." This was because the British interfered with our maritime rights. They did not sink our

people of Texas were surely not unreasonable in wishing to live under American laws rather than under Mexican rule.

The war we fought with Mexico was not a great war, however. Our greatest war lasted four years, and was not with a foreign country. It was caused by a great sin among ourselves, a sin which had begun as a small thing long before we won our independence, but grew until it was.

BOOTH TARKINGTON

ships or murder American citizens, but they did infringe upon our rights on the sea in a manner intolerable to an independent nation; and so we fought them, of course; and in the end the British agreed to respect the rights we had defended. This was a war we had to fight, unless we were willing to let a foreign government abuse American citizens; any nation must fight when it comes to such a question as that, you see, or else it will not long be a nation.

And then, before the country settled into its boundaries, there was a war of expansion: Americans had begun to develop a great northern section of Mexico (the hot country south of us), and they declared their independence of Mexico, then asked us to join this section (called Texas) to the United States; which brought about war between the United States and Mexico. Undoubtedly such a war was indeed a war of expansion, but the Mexican rule of Texas was not a good one, and the

enormous and not to be borne. The people of the Southern States of our federation held hundreds of thousands of negroes as slaves, and when the nineteenth century was a little more than half over, the North found that the time had come when the great evil must be faced.

Now, my dear child, if you wish to understand the character of our people, I will ask you to think for a mo

ment or two about this great and terrible Civil War of ours. My father and some of my uncles took part in it; for almost all the men whom I knew in my boyhood and youth had been soldiers in that fierce struggle. Some of them, indeed, were cripples, but all greatly honored among us; and even now we still see the old, old veterans gathering for a reunion. Why did they fight?

The Southerners had determined to break up the country rather than abate what they considered their rights in their property, the slaves. The Northern States would not consent that slavery should increase, and determined to hold it in check; and this brought on the war which, after four years of terrible sacrifice, crushed the South and abolished slavery. The Northern States did not want war; they hated war and were altogether unprepared for it. There could be no material gain for them in their opposition to slavery. They knew that the war and even the abolition of slavery itself would make them poorer, not

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