Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 Part 10

Robinson Crusoe.

The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. By DANIEL DEFOE. With a Biographical Account of Defoe.

Ill.u.s.trated by Adams. Complete Edition. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50.

The Swiss Family Robinson.

The Swiss Family Robinson; or, Adventures of a Father and Mother and Four Sons on a Desert Island. Ill.u.s.trated. 2 vols., 18mo, Cloth, $1.50.

The Swiss Family Robinson--Continued: being a Sequel to the Foregoing. 2 vols., 18mo, Cloth, $1.50.

Sandford and Merton.

The History of Sandford and Merton. By THOMAS DAY. 18mo, Half Bound, 75 cents.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price._

CHILDREN'S

PICTURE-BOOKS.

Square 4to, about 300 pages each, beautifully printed on Tinted Paper, embellished with many Ill.u.s.trations, bound in Cloth, $1.50 per volume.

The Children's Picture-Book of Sagacity of Animals.

With Sixty Ill.u.s.trations by HARRISON WEIR.

The Children's Bible Picture-Book.

With Eighty Ill.u.s.trations, from Designs by STEINLE, OVERBECK, VEIT, SCHNORR, &c.

The Children's Picture Fable-Book.

Containing One Hundred and Sixty Fables. With Sixty Ill.u.s.trations by HARRISON WEIR.

The Children's Picture-Book of Birds.

With Sixty-one Ill.u.s.trations by W. HARVEY.

The Children's Picture-Book of Quadrupeds and other Mammalia.

With Sixty-one Ill.u.s.trations by W. HARVEY.

Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_Sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PLAIN-SPEAKING.

BY MARGARET EYTINGE.

A Mullingong met an Echidna one day, And he cried, "What a very odd nose!

So exceedingly _sharp_. Why, it's funnier far Than your porcupine coat and your toes."

Then most rudely he made all the echoes resound With "he-hees!" and "haw-haws!" and "ho-hoes!"

The Echidna made answer, "My merry young friend, If your own comic nose you could see, Like a juvenile shovel exceedingly _flat_, I am sure you'd stop laughing at me; For _perfectly lovely_, beside it, is mine.

Ho! ho! and haw! haw! and he! he!"

A PERSONATION: WHO AM I?

There have been few people more written about, and yet there is very little known of me. I wish I had known, during my life, that I was to become so famous, for I might have taken pains to leave accurate accounts of myself. I wrote a great deal, yet there is much discussion even over my signature. I was born and brought up in the country, as you can easily judge from the many allusions to country pleasures and sights in my works. My parents were poor, and I had to depend on myself; and when still young decided to go to London--many say because I could not live happily with my wife, whom I had married when but eighteen. I sought and found employment in London in the theatres. I was anxious to return home (which I had left a poor lad) a rich man; so I worked early and late, and about twelve years after leaving home was able to buy one of the best houses in my native place. It has always been supposed I did not like my wife very much, because in my will I left her only my "second-best bed"; but then people forget that she also had her dower. I wrote over thirty-seven books, though some of the writings attributed to me are not mine, and scholars will dispute about me probably to the end of time.

Except that I was born, married, went to London, wrote, returned home, made a will, and died, there is nothing certainly known about me: everything else is conjecture, for, alas! I had no Boswell. My books have been translated into all civilized tongues, my sayings are as familiar in men's mouths "as household words," and though about me the world may know little, no one can be considered well educated who is not conversant with my books.

I forgot to tell you I was born on the 23d of April, 1564, and died on the 23d of April, 1616--not an old man, you see, to have gained such fame; yet every year many pilgrims visit my birth-place and my grave, the epitaph on which has alone enabled me to lie quietly in the country church-yard, for many would like to see me in Westminster Abbey, where there is a fine monument to me.

THE ABSURD PENGUIN PUZZLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.]

This Puzzle appeared in No. 25, page 344. It was, with two straight cuts of the scissors, to change the fish, Fig. 1, into an absurd penguin catching a herring, as is shown in Fig. 2.

=A Spider's Instinct.=--Spiders crawling more abundantly and conspicuously than usual upon the in-door walls of houses foretell the near approach of rain; but the following anecdote shows that some of their habits are the equally certain indication of frost being at hand.