1869.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
225 
“ THE BEST JUVENILE MAGAZINE EVER PUBLISHED IN ANY LAND OR LANGUAGE .’ 
OUR YOUNG FOLKS. 
The Story of a Bad Boy, by Mr. T. B. Aldrich, haa excited a deeper and more general interest than any other story over published in a Juvenile Magazine. It is awaited monthly with 
Impatience, and read with the greatest eagerness and delight by both old and young. We give below an extract from the June uumber of “ Our. Young Folks.” 
GYPSY, THE PONY. 
This record of my life at Rivermouth would be strangely incomplete did I not devote an 
entire chapter to Gypsy. I had other pets, of course ; for what healthy boy could long 
exist without numerous friends in the animal kingdom ? I had two white mice Iliac were 
forever gnawing their way out of a pasteboard chateau, and crawling over my face when 
I lay asleep. 1 used to keep the pink-eyed little beggars iu my bedroom, greatly to the an¬ 
noyance of Miss Abigail, who was constantly fancying that one of the mice had secreted 
itself somewhere about her person. 
1 also owned a dog, a terrier, who managed in some inscrutable way to pick a quarrel 
with the moon, and on bright nights kept up such a ki-yi-ing in our back garden, that we 
were finally forced to dispose of him at private sale. He was purchased by Mr. Oxford, the 
butcher. I protested against the arrangement, and ever afterwards, when we had sausages 
from Mr. Oxford’s shop, I made believe I detected in them certain evidences that Cato had 
been foully dealt with. 
Of birds I had no end,—robins, purple-martins, wrens, bulflnches, bobolinks, ringdoves, 
and pigeons. At one time I took solid comfort in the iniquitous society ot a dissipated old 
parrot, who talked so terribly, that the Itev. Wibird Hawkins, happening to get a sample of 
Poll’s vituperative powers, pronounced him “ a benighted heathen,” and advised the Captain 
to get rid of him. A brac^of turtles supplanted the parrot in my affections; the turtles 
gave way to rabbits; and the rabbits in turn yielded to the superior charms of a small 
monkey, which the Captain bought of a sailor lately from the coast of Africa. 
But Gypsy was the prime favorite, in spite of many rivals. I never grew weary of her. 
She was the most knowing little thing in the world. Her proper sphere in life—and the one 
to which she ultimately attained—was the sawdust arena of a travelling circus. There 
was nothing short of the three P.’s, reading, Titing, and Tithmetic, that Gypsy could n’t be 
taught. The gift of speech was not hers, but the faculty of thought was. She combined the 
wisdom of the serpent with the harmle9sness of the dove. 
My little friend, to be sure, was not exempt from certain graceful weaknesses, insepar¬ 
able, perhaps, from the female character. She was very pretty,—and she knew it. She was 
also passionately fond of dress,—by which I mean her best harness. When she had this on, 
her curvetings and prancings were laughable, though in ordinary tackle she went along 
demurely enough. There was something in the enamelled leather and the silver-washed 
mountings that chimed with her artistic sense. To have her mane braided, and a rose or a 
pansy stuck into her forelock, was to make her too conceited for anything. 
She had another trait not rare among her sex. She liked the attentions of young gentle¬ 
men, while the society of girls bored her. She would drag them, sulkily, in the cart; but as 
for permitting one of them in the saddle, the idea was preposterous. Once when Pepper 
'Whitcomb’s sister, in spite of our remonstrances, ventured to mount her, Gypsy gave a liitlo 
indignant neigh, and tossed the gentle Emma heels over head in no time. But with any of 
the boys the mare was as docile as a lamb. 
Her treatment of the several members of the family was comical. For the Captain she 
entertained a wholesome respect, and was always on her good behavior when he was around. 
As to Miss Abigail, Gypsy simply laughed at her ,—literally laughed, contracting her upper 
lip and displaying all her snow-white teeth, as if something about Miss Abigail struck her, 
Gypsy, as being extremely ridiculous. 
Kitty Collins, for some reason or another, was afraid of the pony, or pretended to be. 
The sagacious little animal knew it, of course, and frequently when Kitty was hanging out 
clothes near the stable, the mare, beiilg loose in the yard, would make short plunges at her. 
Once Gypsy seized the basket of clothes-pins with her teeth, and rising on her hind legs, 
pawing the air with her fore feet, followed Kitty clear up to the scullery steps. 
That part of the yard was shut off from the rest by a gate ; but no gate was proof against 
Gypsy’s ingenuity. She could let down bars, lift up latches, draw bolts, and turn all sorts 
of buttons. This accomplishment rendered it hazardous for Miss Abigail or Kitty to leave 
any eatables on the kitchen table near the window. On one occasion Gypsy put in her 
head and lapped up six custard pies that had been placed by the casement to cool. 
An account of my young lady’s various pranks would fill a thick volume. A favorite 
trick of hers, on being requested to “ walk like Miss Abigail,” was to assume a little skittish 
gait so true to nature that Miss Abigail herself was obliged to admit the cleverness ol the 
Imitation. 
The idea of putting Gypsy through a systematic course of instruction was suggested to 
me by a visit to the circus which gave an annual performance in Rivermouth. This show 
^embraced, among its attractions, a number of trained Shetland ponies, and I determined 
that Gypsy should likewise have the benefit of a liberal education. I succeeded in teach¬ 
ing her to waltz, to fire a pistol by tugging a string tied to the trigger, to lie down dead, to 
wink one eye, and to execute many other feats of a difficult nature. She took to her 
studies admirably, and enjoyed the whole thing as much as anybody. 
The monkey was a perpetual marvel to Gypsy. They became bosom-friends in an in¬ 
credibly brief period, and were never easy out of each other’s sight. Prince Zany—that’s 
what Pepper Whitcomb and I christened him one day, much to the disgust of the monkey, 
who bit a piece out of Pepper’s nose—resided in the stable, and went to roost every night 
on the pony’s back, where I usually found him in the morning. Whenever I rode out, I was 
obliged to secure his Highness the Prinee with a stout cord to the fence, he chattering all 
the time like a madman. 
One afternoon as I was cantering through the crowded part of the town, I noticed that the 
people in the street stopped, stared at me, and fell to laughing. 1 turned round in the 
saddle, and there was Zany, with a great burdock leaf in his paw, perched up behind me on 
the crupper, as solemn as a judge. 
After a few months, poor Zany sickened mysteriously, and died. The thought occurred to 
me then, and comes back to me now with redoubled force, that Miss Abigail must have 
given him some liot-drops. Zany left a large circle of sorrowing friends, if not relatives, 
Gypsy, I think, never entirely recovered from the shock occasioned by his early demise. 
She became fonder of me, though ; and one of her cunningest demonstrations was to escape 
from the stable-yard, and trot up to the door of the Temple Grammar School, where I would 
discover her at recess patiently waiting for me, with her fore feet on the second step, and 
wisps of straw standing out all over her. 
I should fail if I tried to tell how dear the pony was to mo. Even hard, unloving men 
become attached to the horses they take care of; so I, who was neither unloving nor hard, 
grew to love every glossy hair of the pretty little creature that depended on me for her 
soft straw bed and her daily modicum of oats. In my prayer at night I never forgot to 
mention Gypsy, with the rest of the family,—generally setting forth her claims first. 
Whatever relates to Gypsy belongs properly to this narrative; therefore I oiler no apolo¬ 
gy for rescuing from oblivion, and boldly printing here, a short composition which I wrote 
in the early part of my first quarter at the Temple Grammar School. It is my maiden effort 
in a difficult art, and is, perhaps, lacking in those graces of thought and style which are 
reached only after the severest practice. 
Every Wednesday morning, on entering school, each pupil was expected to lay bis exer¬ 
cise on .Mr. Grimsliaw’s desk; the subject was usually selected by Mr.Grimsliaw himself, 
the Monday previous. AVith a humor characteristic of him, our teacher had instituted two 
prizes, one for the best and the other for the worst composition of the month. The first 
prize consisted of a penknife, or a pencil-case, or some such article dear to the heart of 
youth; the second prize entitled the winner to wear for an hour or two a sort of conical 
paper cap, on the front of which was written, in tall letters, this modest admission: I am 
a Dunce! The competitor who took prize No. 2 was n’t generally an object of envy. 
My pulse beat high with pride and expectation that Wednesday morning, as I laid my 
essay, neatly folded, on the master’s table. I firmly decline to say which prize I won ; but 
here is the composition to speak for itself :— 
/iP cN h )Cz. 
A, 
pp tne-or 
AS. 
Li- L— c ltnU, 
The following letter expresses fairly the opinion entertained of “ Oun Young Folks," as 
coinunicated in numerous letters to the Publishers. 
Springfield, Feb. 23., 1S69. 
To tub Editors of “ Our Young Folks.” 
“Your magazine is such a source of delight in our family, and at the same time so valuable 
and instructive to our children, that I feel impelled to write yon and thank you for what 
you are doing for them and for others like them. We have taken the magazine ever since 
it started, but we think it more interesting than ever this year. 
“The ‘ Story of a Bad Boy ’ pleases my boys so much that they fairly commit each instal¬ 
ment to memory. Air. Trowbridge’s articles on Glass-Making we have found particularly 
interesting, and so are the articles by Mr. Parton, and Air. Hale, and Mrs. Agassiz. I assuro 
you that the monthly arrival of your Magazine is a great event in our household. Expec¬ 
tation gets on tiptoe about the middle of each month, after which time the Post-office boy 
is closely watched by two pair of eager young eyes, on the lookout for what they call ‘ the 
best magazine that ever was.’ 
“ In sober earnest, dear Editors, I feel that you are doing my children an inestimable good, 
that you are furnishing to them a style of reading in every respect admirable and particu¬ 
larly adapted to them; and as I see the interest with which they read what you prepare for 
them, and observe its restraining and developing influence upon their young minds, I feel 
grateful that in their education I have such a valuable assistant as your magazine. 
Respectfully yours, Mrs. A. M.” 
US'* “ OUK YOUNG POLKS ” is only Two Dollars a year, and the numbers for January, February, March, and April, 18G9, will be sent free 
to any one who wishes to examine the Magazine, on application to the Publishers, 
FIJS1LBS* 124 Tressiosit Street* Hostess. 
