“She doesn’t mean to be laughed at, though, for doing this kind of work, and doing it in an original kind of way.  After she has given you one or two sound shakings, which she generally does, you’ll have great respect for the old lady, and feel quite like taking off your hat to her.  With the shakings and the thunderings under-foot, and now and then the opening of a long steam-crack, she keeps her visitors quite in awe of her powers, though she is probably several hundred years old.

“Not far from the little hut where we sleep, close to the precipice, is Pele’s great laboratory, where she makes sulphur.  We wear our straw hats to the sulphur banks, and she bleaches them for us.

    “Well, this is a strange, strange land, old Pele being only one of
    its many curiosities.

“I only hope you may all see the active old goddess before she dies.  She hasn’t finished her work yet.  Once in a while she runs down to the shore, to bathe and look at the Pacific Ocean, and when there she generally gives a new cape to Hawaii by running out into the sea.”

Majestic old Pele!  Long may she live!

MAKING IT SKIP

[Illustration]

        “I’ll make it skip!”
  Cried Charley, seizing a bit of stone. 
    And, in a trice, from our Charley’s hand,
          With scarce a dip,
  Over the water it danced alone,
    While we were watching it from the land—­
          Skip! skip! skip!

          “I’ll make it skip!”
  Now, somehow, that is our Charley’s way: 
    He takes little troubles that vex one so,
          Not worth a flip,
  And makes them seem to frolic and play
    Just by his way of making them go
          Skip! skip! skip!

THE WILLOW WAND.  BY A.E.W.

  I have a little brother,
    And his name is Little Lewy;
  His starry eyes are bright as flowers
    And they are twice as dewy. 
  Sometimes the dew o’erflows them,
    And trickles down his cheeks;
  And then he cries so hard, you’d think
    He wouldn’t stop for weeks. 
  Then my other little brother,
    A bough of willow bringing,
  Drives all the dew-drops far away,
    By waving it and singing: 

[Illustration]

  “One, two, free, fo’, five, six, seven tears! 
  You’ll be as old as farver in forty sousand years. 
  Drate big men don’t have tears, so let me wipe ’em dry;
  In forty sousand years from now you’ll never, never cry.”

  This other little brother,
    Whose name is Little Bert,
  Frowns in a dreadful manner
    Whenever he is hurt;
  The wrinkles right above his nose
    Look like the letter M,
  He keeps them there so long, he must
    Be very fond of them. 
  Then my little brother Lewy,
    The branch of willow bringing,
  Sends all the naughty frowns away,
    By waving it and singing: