941 
7h* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Mary and Martha one Summer day, 
Went out on the lawn to play croquet. 
(Afr 
Drawn by Annie Caljouw, Virginia 
Drawn by Blanche Vodvarka (13 years), 
New York 
Drawn by Ruth Eaton (10 years), Massachusetts 
Drawn by Rebecca Spencer (13 years), Mar 
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Drawn in color by Eva Robillard (14 years), New York. 
which was as follows: 1, Kingfisher; 2, 
Independence; 3, Joseph, Milton, Eu¬ 
gene; 4, Gillette; 5, Silver Bells; 6, 
Rocky Ford ; 7, Lexington ; 8, Columbus. 
Some sent other questions of the same 
kind, but your editor feels that this is a 
better game for you to play among your¬ 
selves by two and threes than it is to try 
to keep going on Our Page, because often 
there will be several answers that might 
do for some of the questions. However, 
it gives you a good suggestion for rainy- 
day amusement, and here is another one 
which can be carried out wherever two 
readers and a checkerboard can be 
brought together: 
CORNERING THE PIG 
The implements of the game are one 
checker to represent the pig and four 
checkers of another color to represent the 
farmers. The pig can move backwards 
or forwards on the red squares. The 
farmers can move just one way on them. 
To set the game up, place the pig in a 
corner on a red square. On the op¬ 
posite side place the farmers on four red 
squares. The pig has first move, and an¬ 
other each time one of the farmers moves. 
The object is to see whether the pig can 
break through the line of farmers, or the 
farmers can surround the pig so that it 
can’t move either way. To win, the play¬ 
er that takes the farmers’ part must cor¬ 
ner the pig. If the pig breads through 
the line of farmers he wins. 
Sylvia Story (13 years). 
Connecticut. 
Betsy 
Betsy’s fur is a soft, soft gray, 
I don’t see how she keeps it that way, 
For she’s always so full of play, 
And visits the coalbin every day. 
Betsy catches rats, 
But never gets fat; 
She’s crazy for fish, 
But won’t use a dish. 
She plays hide and seek, 
But never does peek ; 
She’s a great playmate for me, 
So I love her you see. 
—Philip Wright (11 years). 
M a ssa chusett s. 
Daddy Longlegs 
It was rather a surprise that so few 
answered the Nature Puzzle by Dorothy 
and Eloise Skinner, published last month. 
Your editor looked forward to some fine 
letters and perhaps a drawing or two; 
But they didn’t come, so we must do 
without. Probably most of you guessed 
the answer but were too busy to write 
just at that time, with schools closing, 
vacation plans under way and lots of 
things needing to be done about the farm. 
For of course every boy and girl knows 
the daddy longlegs, or grandfather-gray- 
beard, or harvestman, as he is variously 
called. It is a mistake to speak of this 
little animal as an insect, just as it is to 
call spiders insects. All insects have six 
legs, whereas daddy longlegs and spiders 
and some other creatures have eight legs, 
and belong to a different class in the ani¬ 
mal kingdom. The next time you meet a 
“daddy” take a few minutes to follow it 
around and study what it does. Or you 
could keep one carefully under a glass jar 
for a day or two, feed it a few.drops of 
sugar water and watch it at your leisure. 
A New Nature Puzzle 
Don’t let us lose interest in these Na¬ 
ture Puzzles—one each month ! They 
help us to know more of the common 
things all round about us and to appre¬ 
ciate them better. Flowers, trees, crops, 
weeds, birds, insects, animals—any and 
every object in the outdoor world may 
serve for puzzles. All you have to do is 
to write out a clear description of the 
thing you have in mind without telling 
its name. (Give the name separately to 
your editor.) When the puzzle is pub¬ 
lished our readers all try to guess the 
answer. Here is a good one for this 
month. Do you know the answer? 
I am a little blue flower. I live in the 
fields and on hillsides. I am very com¬ 
mon. My roots are densely matted. My 
stem is long and slender. My leaves are 
slender and flat, inc-losinj the stem at the 
base. I am found from May to July. I 
have three petals like the sepals and 
three sepals like the petals. My seeds 
are black and nearly spherical. I am re¬ 
ported to have a medical value, and I am 
an interesting wild flower. What am I? 
Dorothy Denton (13 years). 
New York. 
The Blue Bird 
BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK 
This is the answer to the May Book 
Puzzle. Maeterlinck is a Belgian author, 
best known in America for this story, 
which he wrote in the form of a play. It 
has been rewritten, by his wife, in simple 
form for children. Every boy and girl 
should become familiar with “The Blue 
Bird” at the first opportunity. It can 
probably be found in most public libraries 
and in not a few school and Sunday 
school collections. You will see that one 
reader has sent us a pretty drawing, 
made from memory of the story, and be¬ 
low is one of the letters received in ans¬ 
wer to the puzzle: 
I like the Boys’ and Girls’ page very 
much, and have been reading it ever since 
it was started, but I have not written to 
you yet. I have lived on a farm all my 
life with my father, mother and brothers. 
I think country life is very nice. My 
father has a small country store, which 
I help take care of during Summer vaca¬ 
tion. I help my mother plant flowers 
every Spring, and sometimes help in the 
garden. We have 146 acres of land, sev¬ 
en cows, two horses, about 50 chickens 
and three old geese and six young gos¬ 
lings. 
I think the answer to May’s Book Puz¬ 
zle is “The Blue Bird for Children,” by 
Georgette Leblanc (Madame Maurice 
Maeterlinck). In the introduction to this 
book is the following paragraph : 
“Maurice Maeterlinck was born in 
Ghent, Belgium, August 20, 1862. Al¬ 
though trained for the practice of law 
and moderately successful in it, he very 
early became dissatisfied with the pros¬ 
pect of a career at the bar. In 1887 the 
young man moved to Paris and turned 
his attention to writing. Shortly after, 
at the death of his father, Maeterlinck re¬ 
turned to Belgium where he has since re¬ 
sided most of the time. His career as an 
author practically began in 1889 when 
he published two plays. At this time he 
was quite unknown except to a small 
circle, but soon because of his remarkable 
originality we find him being called ‘The 
Belgian Shakespeare,’ and his reputa¬ 
tion firmly established. . . . ()f all his 
writings, it is conceded that ‘The Blue 
Bird’ makes the strongest appeal to chil¬ 
dren.” Mildred Klein 
New York. (11 years). 
What Book Is This? 
The chief character is a little girl of 10, 
who was found when a baby tied to the 
mast of a wrecked vessel. She had been 
washed ashore with her father and moth¬ 
er on an island, the home of an old light¬ 
house keeper. The child’s parents had 
been killed on the rocks, but by a miracle 
she was saved, and the lighthouse keeper 
who found her vowed he would take care 
of her as long as she lived. This little 
girl had many adventures. She loved to 
dress in her mother’s clothes. Later on 
this girl becomes acquainted with a lady 
who immediately recognizes her likeness 
to her mother. The lady visited the light¬ 
house keeper and asked him to part with 
the little girl so that she could have a 
better education. The keeper consented 
but the girl would not go. When the 
lighthouse keeper died the heroine of the 
book went to live with her relatives. 
Dorothy Frylinck (14 years). 
New Jersey. 
Dorothy has given us a Book Puzzle 
that many of you will be able to identify. 
Remember that you are to send in the 
title of the book and the name of the 
author. If you can add something of in¬ 
terest about your experience in reading 
(his story or about the life of the author 
do not hesitate to do it. Besides that, try 
making up a puzzle yourself about some 
book or poem you have read recently. 
Our Artists 
This month your editor did not have 
neaily so hard a task as usual selecting 
di a wings to print, because not many were 
sent in. Perhaps some of you did not 
read the May page carefully enough to 
find the little rhyme tucked away in the 
second column, or perhaps you thought the 
croquet scene too hard, or perhaps you 
were very busy, or perhaps—but anyway 
you missed an opportunity. You will en¬ 
joy the drawings that are printed, and 
one of the “artists” has also supplied us 
with a rhyme for next time which is very 
good indeed. Here it is: 
Mary had a sunflower 
Out beside the wall, 
And every day she watered it, 
Till it grew very tall. 
Now if we don’t have a whole page full 
of sunflowers and Marys and walls and 
watering pots I shall be disappointed. 
Set to work and send in your own orig¬ 
inal drawing to fit this rhyme. 
A Puzzle 
The answer to last month’s Cross-word 
Enigma was a—g-a-r-d-e-n, as some read¬ 
ers were keen enough to discover, though 
most of you found it too hard. For many 
months we have been solving these enig¬ 
mas, and while we enjoy them and your 
editor has many fine ones on hand, still 
it is time we tried some other kind of 
puzzle. So here is one sent by a New 
York reader who asked not to have her 
name signed to it for a very good reason, 
which I will tell you next month along 
with the answer. I will leave it to you to 
guess how this puzzle is solved, and per¬ 
haps to make up some others of a sim¬ 
ilar kind. Here it is: 
My whole is the name of something 
which the farmer grows; beheaded once, 
I become something which we all need in 
Winter; beheaded again, I become some¬ 
thing we all like to do several times a 
day; beheaded again, I am a preposition- 
and what’s left after once more behead¬ 
ing is the ladies’ favorite beverage. 
Notes 
The couplet in the Box at the head of 
the opposite page was written by Pris¬ 
cilla Ilertel, a Massachusetts reader. 
Everything that you send in helps to 
make Our Page better, whether it is 
printed or not, and of course there it) no 
chance of printing what is never sent. 
The list of this month’s contributors is 
on page 946. It is smaller than it has 
been in a long, long time, but June is a 
very busy season for boys and girls. 
Now that the vacation is well begun you 
can surely find time to write a good let¬ 
ter to Our Page. 
All work lor the July page should be 
sent to reach your editor not later than 
July 5. 
A New York reader writer that the 
poem published last month beginning 
“Merry, rollicking, frolicking May,” was 
written by George MacDonald. We are 
glad to be able to give proper credit to 
the author. 
(Continued on page 946) 
