1880 



gLeaniKgs In beI: ciiLtuUE. 



321 



them. Tliey were liandscliie pets, but we 

 can not afford to have our property injured. 



Ekxest. 



.JUVENILE PUOOF-KEADING. 



Dear Mr. Hoot :— I have sentiences to write and 

 correct every clay at school, and I thought I would 

 try to correct Joseph's letter, page 150. I find 26 

 errors. 



My " intellig-ence " is so little, i [1] do not no 

 [know] of any thing to write that will interest [you], 

 but you must excuse this one, as it is the first. I 

 like to help pa [Pa] work with [in] the bees, except 

 such a one as that cross hybrid stock that stung pa 

 so much threw [through] his f5riches [breeches] 

 and run him off to the spring- and me under the 

 fiore [floor]. They drove the young mule colt that 

 was .% feet away, and made him kick and snort; his 

 hare [hair] was long, and they tangled in it, but he 

 soon fiew [ran] away and "brade" as he run. Pa 

 says the holy land Bees will suck 8 tiours [flowers] 

 while the i[I]talians will suck 2; he says they do 

 not fool time away in Buzing [buzzing] a Round as 

 the i[l]talians do. We keep sawdust 3 or 4 in. deep 

 in our apiary; the ants and frogs will not work in 

 it, the frogs have no place to hide as the duot keeps 

 [keep] the weeds down; a frog will eat .50 bees, if he 

 can get them, so much for sawdust. The Pecan 

 [Pekin] Ducks has [have] a good chance to ketch 

 [catch] the moth miller between sundown and dark. 

 The ducks go among the hives every evening and 

 ketch [catch] every miller that flies; no grass in 

 thear [their] way, so they always lit on Pekins. 

 every one that fly [flies]. TJiese ducks is [are] 

 worth keeping for this alone; besids [besides] each 

 duck will lay 200 large cgs [eggs] evei-y year, then 

 they weigh 15 lbs. to pare of 2 [a pair]. The feath- 

 ers is [are] beautiful and white, and the meat is as 

 nice as chicken. So come and see us and wee [we] 

 will have a big fat one for dinner. 



Henrietta P., age 11. 



Bayou Sara, W. Fel. Par., La. 



Here is what our proof-reader says : 



Well, Henrietta, you have done very well indeed. 

 Your points of order are all well taken, except 

 three. Let us see what they are. You want Jo- 

 seph to spell " pa " with a capital P. That is an error 

 which nearly all the juveniles make. They begin 

 by saying, " My Father keeps bees." In that case, 

 "Father " means God; hence, pa with a small p is 

 correct, except when it begins a sentence. 



You want Joseph to say that he works in bees. 

 That would be a very small workshop for Joseph, as 

 well as quite a burden to the bees. Let us suppose, 

 lor instance, that we make it read, "I like to help 

 my pa work amotig the bees;" wouldn't that be bet- 

 ter'/ I think the popular prejudice would be in 

 favor of the preposition among, although the same 

 idea might be expressed in other words. 



Jesejih sa.\s, " Dust keeps the weeds down;" and 

 you correct him by saying, "Dust keep the weeds 

 down." Your error here is so plain that you will read 

 ilysee it, so you have only 23 scores against Joseph. 



But after all, Henrietta, you have left so many 

 errors unmarked, that, if we should print Joseph's 

 letter with your corrections, it would be just about 

 as bad as ever; for when u coffee-pot has several 

 hundred holes in it, and you solder up onlj'23of 

 them, it will leak as fast as you can pour water 

 into it, and hence is unserviceable. You have 



paid little or no attention to the punctuation and 

 manj' other features which printers are called upon 

 to look after. If the editor thinks it worth while, 

 we will, at some future time, reprint Joseph's letter 

 just as we would have marked it for our regular 

 use, and then please tell us how many changes we 

 have made, and whether you think our changes are 

 real improvements. 



I will explain that Henrietta's corrections 

 are inclosed in brackets so our readers will 

 see how well she has done her work. Well, 

 I think she has done pretty well, consider- 

 ing that she is only 11 years old. We insert 

 the above from our proof-reader to show the 

 amount of Avork required on some of our ju- 

 venile letters. As a general thing, however, 

 you little folks send us as good copy, if not 

 better, than many of the older ones." 



Ernkst. 



MAKING GRANDPA HAPPY. 



I noticed in Gleanings for Feb. 15 a letter signed 

 .loseph S. G. According to my count there were 2+ 

 erroi'S in all. My brother Will has taken Glean- 

 ings for about two years. I read the children's 

 letters. Papa and brother Will have 28 hives of 

 bees. I am afraid of bees. Whenever a bee comes 

 near me I run. My little bi-other Oliver Hazard, 

 who is six years old, is not afraid of them, though. 

 In the summer he goes all about among them, with- 

 out any thing over his face or hands. 



W^e take the following papers at our house. Mj' 

 papa takes two county papers. My brother Will 

 has the Youth's Companion and Gleanings, and I 

 take The Ladic'fi Home Journal, so j'ou will observe 

 we have plenty of reading-matter. There are Ave 

 children in our family— four boys, and myself— two 

 older and two j'ounger than I. 



Grandpa is an invalid. He was a soldier in the 

 late war, and I find great pleasure in helping pass 

 the time away by reading to him. 



I lost all my my house-flowers this winter by 

 freezing, and they were nice ones. Our canary 

 birds are dead. The house seems different without 

 them. I am wishing for summer to come, so I can 

 have lots of flowei-s out of doors. There are lovely 

 ferns in the woods neai- our house, in the summer. 

 Lizzie Perrv, age 11. 



Van Wert, O., March 14, 1886. 



Thank you, little friend. There are one 

 or two things of interest in your letter, to 

 which I wish to call attention. You will 

 see that your count of the errors found in 

 Joseph's letter agrees very nearly with the 

 count of Henrietta, found i'n another place. 

 Notice there what our pi'oof-reader says. — 

 You say that you take several papers. If 

 you read them all, you certainly will derive 

 a good deal of benefit. One Vvho has read 

 considerable, always shows it; and I will 

 say, for your encouragement, that your let- 

 ter is unusually free from misspelled words 

 ]?ut, do you know what interests me more 

 than ally It is your kind attention to 

 your grandpa. You say you find great 

 "pleasure in helping pass the time away for 

 liim. We always lind "great pleasure'' 

 when we try to help others ; and a bright- 

 eyed little girl, such as I take you to be, can 

 be a (jrcat comfort to grandpa. I remember 

 the time when I had two grandpas, but they 

 are both dead now ; but I have one dear old 

 grandma living now, and lier silvery-gray 



