TAKING HIS PLACE.

BY LILLIE E. BARR.

"Oh, Charlie! Why did you do it? On my birthday too! I am so sorry, for now you will miss all the fun of the Fourth." And as she spoke, Mary sat down, dangling her broad hat by one string, and looked disconsolately at her brother, who had been sent to bed as a punishment.

"How was I to know that just a little bunch of fire-crackers like that was going to smash the goblet? I did not think it would do anything but just lift it up some."

"Who told you to do such a thing, Charlie?"

"Nobody; I thought of it myself. Oh dear! I wish I had a grandma, or an aunt, or somebody like that!"

"What for, Charlie? I am sure nobody could be half so good as mamma."

"I like grandmas and aunts. Eddie Bates has a grandmamma, and she always gets him out of scrapes; and Tom Taylor has an aunt that does lots of things for him. People ought not to get married if they don't have mothers and sisters to make grandmas and aunts for fellows who are always getting blamed for nothing at all."

"But, Charlie, you did break the glass."

"No, I didn't either; the fire-crackers broke it. Oh, dear! dear! I wish there wasn't any Fourth of July, nor fire-crackers, nor nothing! What's the use of fire-crackers, if a fellow can't fire them off? It was real mean to let me spend all my money on fire-crackers, and then not let me have any fun with them. There's my pin-wheel too. I promised Bates to fasten it to the top of the highest clothes-pole in his back yard to-night."

"I am so sorry, Charlie dear!"

"And, Mary, I am so dreadfully hot. I have got a raging fever; I know I have."

"Why do you not say you are sorry?" suggested Mary.

"Didn't I say so?—over, and over, and over. And father just said he thought bed was the best place for boys who exploded fire-crackers under goblets. If I was a father, and wanted to kill a boy, I'd do it out and out, and not roast him to death in bed on a Fourth of July. I wouldn't for millions of dollars send a poor boy to bed on his sister's eighth birthday." But what particular attention was due to his sister's eighth birthday Charlie did not explain.

"You knew the crackers would break the goblet."

"No, I didn't; I never saw them smash one. Didn't they bang, though?" And at the recollection Charlie's eyes grew bright, and a delighted expression illumined his sombre little face. The next moment, however, he was crying bitterly; and Mary, having watched him a moment, ran down stairs, just in time to stop her father as he was going out.

"Papa, please forgive Charlie. He is so sorry, and he wants to go out so much!"

"He must have a lesson, Mary, that will teach him not to be so destructive." But he added, smiling, "If you choose to take his place, Charlie may go out."

Mary bounded away to her brother's room. "Papa says you may go out, Charlie. Get up, dear."

Charlie needed no second bidding, and he asked no questions. Five minutes later he was explaining to Eddie Bates the principles upon which he had blown a goblet all to smithereens in his back yard.

What a glorious Fourth it was! Charlie did not go home until tea-time. He would not have gone then, but that his pin-wheel and the rockets were under his clean shirts in the bottom drawer of his bureau, and must be gone for.

Up stairs he ran, as gay as a cricket, and burst into his room. "Let me see; they are in this one. Bother! Where did I put them?"

"What are you looking for, Charlie?"

"What are you doing in bed?"

"Taking your place."

"What!"

"Papa said if I would take your place, you might go out; and girls do not care much about the Fourth of July," said Mary, cheerily.

"And you have been in bed all day?"

"Of course; papa said you were to stay in bed all day, and I am taking your place."

"But you are not me."

"But I am your substitute."

"Oh, Mary, you dear, dear, darling sister! you are better than all the grandmothers and aunts in the world: catch them going to bed a whole day for a fellow!" cried Charlie, kissing her proudly.

"I am very, very glad I took your place, Charlie."

"You get up now, Mary, and I'll give you my pin-wheel and my rockets, and you and Ella Bates can fire them all off. I wouldn't be so mean as to let you lie there any longer," said Charlie, beginning to remove his coat.

"That will do, Charlie," said papa, coming into the room. "Get up, my little daughter; Charlie has learned his lesson, I am sure."

"Indeed I have, papa, and I am real sorry."

That same evening Eddie Bates was boasting to a crowd of boys about his grandmother having saved him from an evening of sorrow in his own room, when Charlie spoke up:

"Grandmas and aunts are all well enough, boys, but sisters are a heap better. You just listen." And in a voice of pride and love he related his sister's generous act.

And the gay little crowd gave Mary three cheers and a tiger, besides firing off nine starry rockets simultaneously in her honor.