MR. MONKEY.

Oh, fun, fun, fun! Is there anything half so funny in this world as a monkey?

Just listen a moment, and I will tell you of one that I saw the other day.

Think what a proud monkey he must have been, dressed in a fine suit of clothes! Then to have every one look out of the window when he rung the bell, while he sat up on the corner of the hand-organ. And how the children laughed to see him! After he had called every one within hearing to look at him, he made a little bow and took off his hat very politely.

Then he put down the bell, and his master gave him cymbals, which he banged together in a lively way.

How delighted all were to see that Mr. Monkey was a student! It was so very queer to see the little scholar wearing those spectacles which the hand-organ man put on his nose; how well he held the tiny book, no matter if it was wrong side up!

Mr. Monkey would have made a good farmer, we all said, when we saw him churn. The way that handle flew up and down would have made milk into butter very shortly, if there had been milk there.

Next came the fiddle, a nice little one, just the right size for a monkey to play. The hand-organ sounded very slowly while the little monkey played his fiddle. For fear that his master would feel badly because he was so far behind, Mr. Monkey put away his instrument, and bowed very low to the people, taking off his hat to thank them for the many pennies showered upon him.

A TRUE STORY.

Bertie Gale lived near a noisy little brook, which went singing through the meadow. Just below the house in which he lived was a dam. It made a large pond above it, and the water was used to turn the wheel of a small woollen-mill.

It was such fun to watch the water pouring over the wheel, turning it swiftly round and round.

Bertie was never tired of looking at it, but it made his mother very anxious if her little boy was long out of her sight. But he had promised never to go into the water without permission.

But one summer the water was shut off for a while, and the mill was silent. The old wheel was badly decayed and broken, and Mr. Gale said a new wheel must be built.

Every day Bertie hurried home from school to watch his father and the workmen, as they built the new wheel.

One day when he came home, he ran down to the mill as usual. The wheel was in its place all ready for action.

How new and clean it looked! The workmen had gone, and no one was in sight.

"What a nice playhouse it would make," thought the boy. Then he stepped carefully into the wheel.

"This is my castle," said Bertie to himself, "and the brook is the river Rhine, and"—

Bertie did not finish his sentence. Suddenly there was a terrible roaring over his head, and the wheel began to go slowly around. The next thing the boy knew he was lying upon a pile of blocks and shavings, feeling very much as if he had been through his mother's sausage-mill, but very thankful that he was not still going around that swiftly-moving wheel. He was not very much hurt, but it was a long time before he cared to look at the water-wheel again.