Kansas University Weekly.
247
"Ijes' wisht I could do somethin' for myself" Seraphima said. "I'm jes in trubble all the time. Me an'Auntie can't get along together, an'I guess I'll split kindlin's."
With Seraphima, "splitting kindlings" was a sort of semi-religious ceremony that furnished an outlet for her angry passions without getting her into further trouble.
She pulled a block of wood into an upright position, and siezing the hatchet with both her little hands, began operations. Whack, whack! a little chip flew off into the air.
"Um," said Seraphima, smacking her lips, "that's Auntie."
Again the hatchet came down with considerable force, and a larger chip fell from the block. Seraphima looked at it intently for some moments.
"Well-I guess that's me," she said, dropping the hatchet, and skipping around the corner where she met Dickon coming up the path with a plump watermelon under his arm.
"Oh Dickon; where did you get it?" shouted Seraphima so loudly that her Aunt came to the door to see what was the matter.
"I—I hooked it," answered Dickon, winking as respectfully as possible at his Aunt.
"Hooked it!" Seraphima's voice contained a dozen or more exclamation points.
"Whuh, hooked it."
"How?"
"Silly! How'd you hook anything?" and Dickon turned on his heel and entered the kitchen thinking what a nuisance girls were anyway.
Seraphima was possessed of a sudden idea; she must needs try the experiment of "hooking" for herself. With a comical little frown between her eyes, she walked demurely out to the vegetable garden behind the house. Not a watermelon was in sight, but surely a cabbage would do just as well. Crouching upon her hands and knees, and looking very much like a huge toad, Seraphima lowered her head and began bumping a cabbage with all her little might. The vegetable remained firm. Again and
again Seraphima returned to the onslaught,and at last the cabbage wavered and toppled over.
"Seraphima Emily Beatrice Kerkins! What under the sun are you doing?" called her Aunt from the window.
Seraphima arose and held the cabbage out at arm's length.
"Auntie," she said proudly, "I hooked it." E.A.H.
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From the Life of Sarah Jane.
Sarah Jane was thirteen. She sat on the back steps of the dreary, dingy frame house. She was looking earnestly at something. The something, I grieve to confess, was a piece of a broken mirror. But, alas, poor Sarah Jane! The picture the mirror showed her was sufficient punishment for her youthful folly and, was itself, if one could judge by her mournful expression, the surest cure for vanity that might linger in the child's mind. She saw a round, sunburned face, plentifully sprinkled with freckles, particularly abundant across the nose, a mouth, oh, so much larger than there was any need for, a mop of hair that never would stay where it was put, and was so faded by long exposure to summer sunshine that it was impossible to tell which of the several shades of brown belonged to it by nature. "It just gets worse and worse! If I only just had one pretty thing!" sighed poor Sarah Jane.
"Sarry Jane, Sarry Jane," called her mother from the kitchen, "come here and see what I've got for ye." The little girl hastily pushed her mirror under the edge of the steps and ran into the house. "See what ye're Uncle John's sent ye for ye're birthday," said the mother. With trembling fingers, the child unwrapped the long bundle and drew from the paper coverings a doll which must have come straight from Paris, she looked so gorgeous and so entirely out of place in the plain, bare kitchen. "Well now," exclaimed Sarah Jane's mother, "don't that make ye proud? And I'm right glad ye're uncle thought on't, ye've been a wantin' one so for two years and more. It's a heap better though, than as if ye'd had it before. The baby's big enough to give ye some peace a playin'