resolved that she, for one, would not have a bad lesson in so delightful a school. When the potatoes were ready, the pupils took their frying-pans from their cupboards, the teacher lighted the little gas-stoves, and presently the entire class was mer

SOPHIE CONNER BECOMES A MEMBER OF "THE DOLLS'
DRESSMAKING CLASS."

rily frying bits of salt pork in the most scholarly way possible. Six frying-pans at once made a lively performance, and when each girl added the bits of onion, and fried them to a lovely brown, the entire class felt that this really was the greatest fun ever seen in vacation-time. Then each girl had a kettle, and with two pounds of fish prepared to

make a chowder. Six chowders in operation at once! The lesson grew exciting. No time for talk or laughter now. Who would have the best chowder? Each scholar had full directions printed on a card and followed these exactly,-half a teaspoonful of salt, a quarter-spoonful of pepper, half a teaspoonful of butter, three crackers, and a pint of milk. Delightful odors began to fill the air. Visitors came in to look on while the singular lesson was carried out, and all too soon the noonbell rang, the exciting lesson came to an end, and the six chowders were done at the same moment. The teacher tasted of every one, and said they all were excellent. She then said the six chowders were for sale; and to Sophie's surprise, she found that a whole troop of girls with kettles was at the door of the schoolroom, waiting to purchase the entire lesson and carry it home!

The next day was Saturday, and there was no school. Sophie spent the morning trying to transfer a geranium to a napkin, and in helping her

mother make a chowder according to the lesson at the Starr King School. Mrs. Conner declared she had never made chowder without tomato, but at Sophie's earnest request, she followed the school rule exactly, and at dinner the chowder was pronounced the best ever eaten by the Conners.

On Monday morning, again the eager

Sophie was at the Starr King School. Would it be cooking, or embroidery, or dressmaking, or carpentry? Quite wonderful to tell, it was tablesetting. Here was a new teacher and a new class of nine girls, including Sophie. This was the queerest lesson of all. When the school began, there were only a bare table in the middle of the room, and five chairs along the wall. The teacher sat before the empty table. Then from two cupboards the class took knives, and plates, and cups, and tea-things, napkins, and table-cloths, and set the table for breakfast in proper order, beginning with the piece of Canton flannel laid under the table-cloth and ending with placing the chairs at the table. Then several of the girls seated themselves at the table, like a family, and one girl pretended to be guest, who sat at the "mother's" right, and two or three girls in turn played the maid, who waited on the table. Under direction from the teacher, they went through all the motions of a real breakfast, and then they put

SECOND PAPER.

TO KEEP me from fretting, when I was very little, my elders used to play with me a quiet little game with pencil and paper called "Going to Taffy's." Perhaps there are other ways, but this was mine. First, as to the origin of the name. You have heard, have you not? the old rhyme about Taffy:

Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief,

Taffy came to my house and stole a piece of beef.
I went to Taffy's house, Taffy was n't home;
Taffy came to my house and stole a mutton-bone.

This was composed several hundred years ago, when hatred existed between the English who occupy the richest land in Great Britain and the Welsh who live in the mountainous part to the westward. The English farmers complained that the poor Welshmen would come slyly by night, or openly by day, with weapons in their hands and carry off their sheep and cattle. And so, to make fun of any Welshman under whose nose it might be sung, they made this ditty. ["Taffy" is a way of saying Davy, which, as you know, means David, a favorite name among the Welsh, who had a great saint of that name. And the reason it is Taffy and not Davy is that the uneducated among the Welsh do not distinguish so clearly as the English between D and T, and between F and V. They speak among themselves a very different language called Kymric, and, though most of them learn English also, the peculiar pronunciation that belongs to Kymric often sticks to their tongues when they speak English.] Now, this is the way we used to make our visit to poor Taffy. Here is our house, just built. In it, you see, we have put two windows, and a low wide door; and because our heathen ancestors used to place on their houses the horns of wild animals, let us crown ours with a big pair. Now that our house is built, we set out for Taffy's to see what can be done about those oxen and sheep. We go along over the downs, higher or lower, until we come to a deep valley. Half-way down is Taffy's cabin. But he has seen us coming and thinks it more prudent to slip off to the hills, and there he hides till he sees us go away. So we come to his cabin, and as there is no sign of him, we take the mutton-bone and write on it, "Taffy, steal no more -or the Bogey will eat you," and thrust it out of the window, where he

00

must see it.

Then off home we go, but by

another road. It is getting late and dark. The rain begins to fall. We lose our way, and find ourselves in a bog. All of a sudden, down we go into a deep mud-hole, and only scramble out to fall into another. Going on smoothly after this for some time, down we tumble again, and still a fourth time. Then we scramble out and see at the top of a long hill the lights in our new house. Soon we are there, and, entering by the back door, we warm ourselves and agree never to go to Taffy's again, at least not by that road.

Every time this little game was played, which some of you probably think very silly, because you are too old for it, I was always very much de

lighted to find that I had drawn an ugly beast I called an ox. I have often thought since, that perhaps this is the way the wild Indians feel when they draw, on skins or bark, the queer pictures that are their only way of writing. The chief, the medicine man, or the prophet does not think he is doing an ordinary thing. thinks he is doing something almost supernatural, and is deeply in earnest.

OUR TRIP TO TAFFY's.

He

Now suppose that some old nation of Asia, after having for ages drawn an ox when they wished to recall an ox, began at last to draw the picture of an ox also whenever it was needful to write about plowing. Then instead of an ox it would convey an idea relating to an ox, and would be what is called a symbol. After a while some one would say to himself: What is the use of drawing all of the ox when the head alone, which every one will know from its shape and its horns, gives just the same thought? Now suppose this ox-head gradually gets to mean the sound of ox in all words of the language wherein that syllable occurs, as in the name of the river Ox-us. Then the ox-head would appear in words having nothing whatever to do with cattle or plowing. Then it is called a piece of sound-writing, because it does not recall a certain given thing, but a sound. Soundwriting is thus an improved kind of picture-writing. You all know sound-writing, and have probably composed sentences in it, but you know it under another name. Hardly a magazine for young people is printed in which you will not find rebuses. Well, many rebuses are nothing but sound-writ