THE RURAl WEW-YORKER. 
JULY 3 
for i\)t JWtig. 
EJwould all like to see 
that little baby-King 
in Spain. No doubt 
you have all read about 
him. He is a King be¬ 
fore he can talk. Gray 
headed men •will be 
obliged to call him 
“Your Majesty” long 
before he can creep. 
There will be small 
chance for people to 
talk “baby talk” to 
him, and as for kissing 
him, that will be out 
of the question, unless his nurse should do it 
on the sly. I expect he looks about like all 
other babies, only he may be much weaker 
and smaller than many who are not one-hun¬ 
dredth part so famous. It is a good thing 
to remember that a King has to be a boy 
just like every other mau. 1 have often 
wondered what the boyhood of a King 
must be. I don’t believe they have half the 
fun rhat our boys have. I don’t see how they 
can help being selfish and proud. They fre¬ 
quently do tilings for which they deserve to 
be whipped, but I am afraid they don’t get 
the whipping as often as they should. I re¬ 
member reading how the Prince of Wales was 
once whipped by bis father, and I dou’t think 
the whipping ever did him any hann. We 
A few days hence he will be in about this 
condition. 
THE STORY OF A DISTRICT SCHOOL. 
A COLLEGE BOY'S DIARY. 
[Not long ago I bad the pleasure of looking 
over a diary belonging to a good friend of 
mine. It was written while he was at college 
quite a number of years ago. I was greatly 
interested in reading what be bad written, 
and the part that 1 lilted best of all was his 
account of his experience as a teacher in a dis¬ 
trict school. You know that many college 
boys teach school during the Winter in order 
to earn money enough to pay their expenses 
at college. He bos consented to let me use 
his notes in something of the form of a story. 
I am not to mentiou his name, and I am to 
write what he has given me in my own words. 
going to canvass for the Royal Path of Life,” 
he said, with a genuine book agent’s flourish. 
“I’ve got that speech reduced to a regular 
science. Let me sell you a book!” 
He ran to the table and brought back my 
geometry as a “sample copy,” and began: 
“Now just observe the elegant binding, the 
clear, open-faced type and the fine paper. 
Here we have a picture representing youth 
and old age. The little child stands looking 
hopefully into the future, while the old man 
sits dreaming of the past." 
He would have gone on to the end of the 
story had not Frank pulled the book away 
from him, and pretended to call for the dog. 
“You may make lots of money out of the 
‘Royal Path of Life,’ but I’d rather plow for 
a living; but what are you going to do?” And 
they all looked at me, 
“Oh I have the best thing of all: just look 
here”; and I produced a letter that had come 
the day before. They all came and looked 
over my shoulder as I read: 
Highly Respected axd Esteemed Sir: 
At a recent meeting of the school board of 
this district, I had the honor of presenting 
your application for the position of principal 
of the educational institute in said district. It 
gives me a satisfaction which I have vainly 
attempted to purge from this communication, 
to announce the fact that you were unanimous- 
ly elected to fill said position, and it therefore 
behooves me to remind you that it is now in¬ 
cumbent upon you to qualify yourself, as re¬ 
quired by law, and present yourself in said 
district, at said time, fully prepared to assume 
the mantle of said authority. In my opinion. 
sent me. I planted them, and they all came 
up nicely. We moved to Illinois lately. We 
like it here better than we did in Michigan. 
We live on a small dairy farm of 340 acres. 
We have 33 cows to milk and 2fi that we do 
not milk. We have raised 70 little chickens, 
and have 100 hens. We have two birds; both 
are singers. We have lots of flowers. We 
have got 33 large pigs and 04 little pigs. My 
sister and I go two miles to school. 
From your niece, lillie Johnson. 
Elburn, 111. _ 
Dear Uncle Mark: Uncle Sam sent us 
some seeds. We planted them, and they are 
doing very well. We have a very mild climate 
here. 1 have never seen ice strong enough to 
bear a weight of even tern pounds, and ■when 
we do have snow, which is very seldom, it al¬ 
ways melts as soon as it touches the ground. 
Father has two cows, two horses aud a pig. 
We live a mile from the Monterey Ray, and 
we can see the ships and steamere coming into 
the harbor. Sometimes we can see the break¬ 
ers dash against the rocks, and toss the spray 
high up into the air. This county is becom¬ 
ing a great resort for Eastern tourists. It has 
long been a favorite summer resort for people in 
the various parts of the State, on account of its 
even temperature aud excellent, beach for 
bathing, but within the last four or five years 
it has been visited by winter tourists, who 
pronounce the beach the 1>est the}' have ever 
seen, and equal to bong Brauch. People were 
in the surf bathiug on New Year’s Day. 
Your nephew, Arthur smith. 
Santa Cruz, Cal. 
have no room for Kings in this country, at 
any age. Our American boys are better off 
than any set of Kings that ever lived. We 
have a chance to spread out and become 
masters of ourselves; that is more than any 
Kiug can say. 
Friendship is a wonderful thing. Every 
bov aud every girl ought to have a good friend. 
Most people naturally pick out a “chum.” 
That is a good plan. Such a f riendsb i p teaches 
us lessons in generosity. The selfish people 
are those who never knew what real friend¬ 
ship is. and so cannot see how pleasant it is to 
do things for others. There are too many sel¬ 
fish people in the world now. They make the 
very air about them sour aud blue. Pick out 
your own friends. Those that other people 
may select for you will not lie half so true. 
I have often read the newspaper item about 
the young lady who sat in the parlor singing 
“Don’t Forget Your Mother When Her Hair 
Turns Gray,” at the very moment when her 
mother was washing in the kitchen. Is there 
any truth in that item? I ask the girls alone— 
the boys need not answer. I believe that most 
girls love their mothers dearly. Sometimes 
they get a little thoughtless though, and forget 
how much mother has to do, and how easily 
they might make the work lighter. It is pos¬ 
sible for you to be too much of a lady , girls, but 
you can’t possibly be too much of a woman. 
I wonder if you can see just what I mean by 
that. Think it over. Do all yon can for your 
mother, girls, aud stop complaining. She has 
to endure three times wbat you do. When¬ 
ever you see her looking tired or discouraged, 
you just go up to her aud kiss her right on the 
mouth. Don’t be afraid you will hurt her or 
injure yourself in any way. Take my word 
for it, it will do you both good. 
We are having plenty of rain now. In fact, 
we have a little to spare for some place where 
there is a drouth. Some farmers are getting a 
little discouraged about the weather; they 
have so much hay down and the crops need 
sunshine so badly that things begin to look 
blue. When I was a boy they used to tell me 
such weather is good for young ducks. I think 
it must be true about that, but human beings 
sometimes feel that they would like to have 
such weather all off in some place where the 
ducks could go aud enjoy it by themselves. It 
won’t do to growl about, the weather though. 
Make the best of it. That Is all we can do. 
Plenty of people are worse off. Here is a city 
mau for instance, who can appreciate all that 
has been said about wet weather. 
It is about as near a true story as we cau get. 
I hope there are very few places like Bear 
Creek, yet I think a great many of our dis¬ 
trict schools could be made a great deal more 
effective than they are now. That is partly 
the reason why I shall tell about this school; 
so that you can notice all the mistakes that 
were made,and think how the school might have 
been made much better. One thing I will tell 
you. I don’t think this young man had any 
business to try to teach in Bear Creek, yet I 
suppose he knew as much as most teachers do. 
I think teachers are like poets—born aud not 
made—and that those who teach just for the 
sake of making a little money will not do much 
good unless they are pretty well watched. It 
is partly because I want to get people to take 
more interest in schools that I give this diary 
a place on our page. I hope, if there is any¬ 
thing that seems a little strange, you will get 
father and mother to read it over and explain 
it. Remember, I am going to write just what 
this youug man did, without any attempt to 
explain or defend his actions. If you find any 
of the charactei-s using bad grammar or say¬ 
ing or doing things that you do uot think are 
right, remembor the proper thing is to avoid 
doing them yourselves.— uncle mark.] 
We were sitting in my room at college talk¬ 
ing over our plans for the Winter, It was 
really a council of war. for we did not expect 
a very peaceful vacation. I supj*oso most 
college boys, many of them at least, look for¬ 
ward to the vacation os a season for great fun 
aud rest. We always get such au idea by 
reading such books as“Tom Brown at Oxford.” 
It was hardly so with us, however. Ourvaea- 
tiou meant simply a season of hard work, in 
which we were to earn money enough to carry 
us through the next college year. We were 
about at the end of our finances. I doubt if 
we had $15 in all. No wonder we met to dis¬ 
cuss plans. They were important enough to 
us. We were students at an agricultural col¬ 
lege at the West. We had just come in from 
work on the farm. George had been digging 
potatoes. Frank had been husking corn; and 
Ed. and I had been ditching. Some of the 
boys may call this rather queer work to be 
done at a college, but we had grown used to 
it. A college life without this work would 
have been all wrong to us, and I really think 
we got about as much fun out of it as most 
college boys get out of games or other exercises. 
My room was not the best of places for hold¬ 
ing a conference. There was no carpet on the 
floor, and I had but one serviceable chair. 
Frank occupied that, while George and Ed. sat 
on the bed, aud I acted as chairman on the 
tr unk Plenty of educations are chopped out 
amid such surroundings at our agricultural 
colleges. Such educations will not be apt to 
break when the test comes. 
There was but one question to be asked— 
What are you going to do this Winter? 
Frank had found a school to teach in a 
country district. He had taught in the same 
place once before, so his way seemed compar¬ 
atively easy. 
George had found a place to chop cord-wood 
at 50 cents per cord aud his board. That was 
considered great wages in those days. 
“I’ll come back a millionaire, boys,” he said 
gleefully. “Fifty cents a cord and pick your 
timber—why I shall have money enough to 
it will be well to confine your educational 
efforts to writing, elocution and deportment, 
and to the propagation of the elements of that 
sound morality which lies at the base of all 
good government. Educationally yours, 
CHARLES FOREST, 
Director of Bear Creek District. 
“Now, boys, what do you think of that? 
Really, now that I am to lie a teacher of edu¬ 
cation and moral elements, I don’t know that 
I ought to associate with book agents and 
wood choppers.” 
Iu answer to this remark George and Ed. 
picked me up and carried me to the window. 
“Testify to the nobility of book agents aud 
wood choppers or fly to the ground,” they 
shouted. 
“Never mind what you do to me boys, but 
save that letter.” was all 1 could say. “I feel 
that I havn’t lived in vaiu while I can call 
out such a note as thut.” 
“So we are all right,” said Frank, as the 
boys brought me back from the window and 
threw me on the bed. “We are all sure to 
come back in the Spring. You heard what 
Prex. said in chapel this morning ? He 
wanted every boy to try and bring back a 
freshman with him iu the Spring. Lets all 
shake hands on it and agree to turn up in the 
Spring with a good man. We ought to have 
a large class.” 
We all shook hands at once. 
"If I come to a place where I can’t sell a 
copy of the ‘Royal Path,* I’ll drag out a boy 
any way,” said Ed., and we shook hands again 
glad that we were so well settled for the Win¬ 
ter. 
(To be continued .) 
NOTES FROM THE COUSINS. 
Dear Uncle Mark: Uncle Nelson takes 
your paper and likes it very much. He told 
Papa if he would take and read it (especially 
the Eye Opener), he need not do anything 
else. I have 28 Plymouth Rock chickens, 
eight ducks and another ben setting on Guinea 
eggs. I set a hen on 18 eggs, and she hatched 
one ami lost, that. She wants to set again, aud 
would you advise me to set her? Many thauks 
for the seeds you sent me. I planted them 
and they came up very well. 
Kirkdale, Que. james stevens. 
[I would set the hen again. No doubt she 
feels ashamed of her poor success aud wants 
to try again.— V. M.] 
Dear Uncle: One of the Cousins wanted 
to know how to grow pansies. I will give my 
way. Fill a box with good rich soil, and 
about the first of March sow your seed in 
drills. Set them in the south window, aud 
keep the soil wet. Then about the middle of 
April transplant on the north side of the house. 
I think they will grow. Then about the first 
of December cover them with a little straw or 
dry grass, and in the Spring they will be nice. 
I wonder if any of the Cousins read novels. 1 
have read Dickens and Scott, and many 
others. 1 bavetukun music lessons since I was 
eight years old. I am now 12 years old. 1 
have a small flower garden. Your niece, 
Galion, Ohio. emma dickie. 
[I like Dickens. It is much better to read 
good books than to spend time upon those 
which are simply “exciting.” 
Dear Uncle Mark: I might have written 
before, but as soon as I got ray work done I 
could not help improving the play time. I 
had quite a pretty flower garden last year, 
but the prospects of a better one this year. 
We have nine chickens and five more hens 
sitting. 1 have a handsome heifer, one year 
two months and 22 days old. She stands 
about four feet high. She is half Dutch aud 
half Jei'sey. She has good points of beiug a 
good cow. Yours respectfully, 
E. Deering, Me. moses p. adams. 
[That ought to make a good cow I thiuk. 
We waut to kuow how she turns out.—u. M. 
Dear Uncle Mark: As Papa did uot have 
any boys he said that I must try for the 
“Clinton Chilled Plow” prize, because he 
wanted a plow. I bave two sisters and their 
names are Lerah and Daisy. The State Agri¬ 
cultural College is iu Fort Collins and my sis¬ 
ters are,both attending it. We live on a farm 
of 100 acres, two-aud-a-half miles from Fort 
Collins. We raise all kinds of small grain, 
and potatoes. Papa thinks the “Beauty of 
Hebron” the best kind of potato that he raises. 
Yourneice, sophy stratton. 
Fort Collins, Colorado. 
[I am sorry you did not win the plow. I 
hope the girls make good college students.— 
u. M.] 
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He has been caught at the corner of two 
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