THE LETTER-BOX
At the request of one of the good friends of St. Nicholas, we take pleasure in reprinting the following item and its illustration, believing that it will interest our young readers of to-day as much as it did those who were our readers in 1879, when it appeared in “Jack-in-the-Pulpit.” It was written by Mary Mapes Dodge.
THE MAGIC LEAF
The leaf has the necromantic power of revealing the secret most important for a person to know; but it will act only on three conditions: First, that the inquirer be quite alone; second, that every line on the leaf be examined through a good magnifying-glass, and with the left eye only, the right eye being kept closed by a gentle pressure from the middle finger of the left hand, which must first be passed around by the back of the head; and third, that the secret, when known, be faithfully kept by the lucky finder.
If you will follow these simple rules closely, my young wiseacres, the secret no longer will be a mystery to you.
“Puis-je parlé avec vous?”
“Oui, Trot,” lui répondit Toddlekins,
Avec un sourire doux.
Lui dit petit Trot—
“Mon Dieu!” lui cria-t-elle;
“Par peur je ne dirais pas un mot!”
“Pourrais-je sauver votre vie?”
“Je ne veux pas être votre femme
Mais vous pouvez le faire—Ah oui!”
“May I talk to you awhile?”
“Why, yeth, of courthe,” said Toddlekins,
With a bashful little smile.
“If we should meet a bear’—
“Good graciouth me!” said Toddlekins,
“You give me thuch a thcare!”
“Would you let me save your life?”
“Oh merthy! Yeth!” said Toddlekins,
“But I will not be your wife!”
Perhaps you know all about Naples, and how beautiful the sea and the sky is when it is blue. I am a little Neapolitan, and I like it very much.
One of my friends, Nora Ricasoli, is also a League member, and she has had the silver badge. The first time I read the St. Nicholas, I thought that badge was the same thing as bag, so I ran off to tell my father that St. Nicholas gave away bags full of gold and silver! Nobody would believe me, and my English governess laughed at me very much, and told me what “badge” meant, and I saw the big difference!
Your interested reader,
Giovanna Colonna. (age 10)
I have only seen two or three letters in the St. Nicholas from Alaska, and just one from Nome; so I thought if I wrote, you might publish my letter, as the boys and girls in the States seem to be quite interested in the far North.
We came to Alaska in the fall of 1902, and have lived here ever since. Nome is not our home though, as we live at Shelton, in the Kougarok precinct, about eighty miles north of Nome.
My brother and I came down to Nome last fall to attend the public school as there is n’t any school in the Kougarok except the government school at Igloo for the Eskimos.
We have long, cold winters and short, hot summers here. In the winter, it is sometimes 50° or 60° below zero, and in the summer the mercury has been known to reach 100° above.
The country is very hilly, with small lakes and swamps between. In quite a few places the ground between the lakes is just like a sponge filled with water. When a573
