The children do the swinging, and I think it must be
better fun than turning a crank or working a plunger.--Yours
affectionately, O.T.
CATS IN SPAIN.
Cats have a nice time in Spain, I hear. No dismal moonlight prowlings
over fences and back sheds for them! They have the roofs of the whole
country for their walks, and need never touch the ground unless they
choose. I'll tell you why. Grain is stored in the attics of Spain,
because they are too hot for anything else. But rats and mice delight
in attics, as well as in grain. So each owner cuts a small door from
the roof, big enough for puss, and any homeless cat is welcome to her
warm home, in return for which she keeps away rats. In a sudden rain
it must be funny to see dozens of cats scampering over the roofs to
their homes among the grain-bags.
"SINCERE" STATUES.
Cambridge, Mass.
DEAR LITTLE SCHOOLMA'AM: In ST. NICHOLAS for December, 1877,
Jack-in-the-Pulpit says that "sincere" is made of the words
_sine-cera_, meaning "honey without wax." I have been told that it
refers also to the Greeks, who, when they found a crack in a
statue, would sometimes fill the flaw with wax; and that hence a
"sincere" statue, one "without wax," would have no flaw, but be a
true and honest statue.
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