SO VERY STRANGE.

BY CHARLES BARNARD.

It was the office-boy who heard it all. He told it to the janitor, and the janitor told it to the night-watchman. Both of them said they never heard anything like it.

"Ghosts and spooks and spirits ain't anything to it," said the watchman.

"You ought to know," said the janitor. "You prowl about here all night."

"I never heard a single book say a thing, much less a lot of letters."

Then the office-boy had to tell the whole story all over again.

The letters had come up from the office, and were laid on the desk ready for the editor of Harper's Young People, when the office-boy came into the room. All the letters had been cut open, and lay in a heap on the desk, and the boy was just going to take one up, when he heard a thin, rustling, papery voice speak right out, and say, "Can't you let a fellow out?"

"Yes, sir," said the boy, opening the door.

There was no one there. Besides all that, the doors were all unlocked, and any one who wished to do so could get out. The office-boy thought it was very queer, and he went back to the desk and sat down.

"Oh, come now, I say! Do let a fellow out."

The office-boy jumped right out of the chair, and said, "Yes, sir."

Well! Of course you won't believe it. There was nobody there. The office-boy sat down again, and said, in a solemn manner, "I swan!"

"Oh!" cried a very thin crickling voice, "I never expected to come to such a place to hear such dreadful words."

The office-boy blushed deeply, and then began to take the letters out of their envelopes and lay them open on the table ready for the editor. Each time he did so some one said, "Thank you; you're very kind; much obliged," in the politest manner possible.

"Guess these letters come from that beautiful country where all the children say, 'Yes, marm,' and 'Thank you,' and 'If you please.'"

And then the whole thing went on in the most startling way. Every letter had something to say. Talk! Letters talk? To be sure. When you read a letter, does it not tell you something? Anybody can understand everything they say the moment you look them in the face. When the office-boy heard all the letters talking at once, he puckered up his mouth, and tried to whistle, but his lips only made up a round O of surprise. He didn't say a word, but tried to remember what the letters said.

"I came from Chicago, and I want to find a boy or girl who will trade postage stamps for minerals."

"I've got a new wiggle. I'd show it to you if I could only unfold myself. I'm too stiff. It's awful cold up here, isn't it?"

"Cold? It's nothing to Chicago. I nearly froze to death in the postal car. It's as much as I could do to keep my ink from freezing, and as for the mucilage on the envelope, it was quite stiff, and full of little crackles. I did think it would be warmer in New York."

"It was so warm in Oclahama, Mississippi, when I left, that the ink wouldn't dry."

"I'm nine years old, and I came all the way from Des Moines."

"You ought to be pretty yellow by this time."

"It isn't me. It's my writer. She's a girl, and she says she didn't like the 'Moral Pirates.'"

At this every one of the letters gave a thin groan, and the office-boy sat right up and said, "My!"

The letters didn't seem to mind this singular remark, for they all began to talk at once.

"I've got two Mexican and one Peru stamp, and some sea-shells. I live in Philadelphia, and I'm ten years old."

"Any fellow want some iron ore? I've come from Marietta, Ohio, and I'll exchange it for real Indian arrow-heads."

"Here I've come all the way from Strasburg, in Alsace, with a new puzzle. I'm sure nobody can read it."

"Yes, they can. It's in English."

"We take Harper's Young People in Germany. I'm nine years old."

"How can you talk about travelling? I've been shut up in four different mail-bags for nearly two months. I came all the way from Samarang, Java."

"I thought there was a dreadful smell of coffee in the mail-bag," said a letter from Buffalo.

"Coffee!" said the postal card from Java, in a thin straw-board sort of voice—"coffee! I was made out of grass that grew next to a coffee plantation, and one day, just before I was cut down—"

"Gracious me!" said a piping voice that sounded as if it was made of rice-straw. "Did they cut you down?"

"No! It was the grass. That's before I was born. Well, I was a-saying, before I was interrupted, that—"

"Oh, do let 'er alone," said a note from Detroit.

"Ah!" cried all the letters; "let 'er alone. That will do for Detroit."

"Now I came from Manitoba," said a letter that had a crackling voice, as if the ice was breaking. "There's not a house for sixteen miles, and it's very lonesome in winter. We have plenty of ice and snow, and the thermometer stays down near zero so much of the time that they do say it has cold feet. Sometimes we do not see any one for a week; but we do not care."

Just then the editor came in, and the office-boy jumped up and said, "Good-morning, sir; nice lot of letters to-day."

Perhaps you don't believe this story: it's true, for all that. At any rate, the last part is true; for every day there comes to Harper's Young People a great pile of letters from boys and girls in all parts of the civilized world.

A LITTLE TAILOR

THE YOUNG ART STUDENT.