MERRY MIKE.

By Fleta Forrester.

Merry Mike, from his door, bounded out to his play, With his head in his hat, on a blustering day; When the wind, of a sudden, came frolicking down, And lifted Mike's hat from his little round crown. "He-he!" said Mike, and he said "Ho-ho! Do you call that funny, I'd like to know?"

Then he made up his mind to return to the house, But the merry wind pushed itself under his blouse; And it roared and it roared, as he puffed and he ran, Till it just knocked over this queer little man. "Ho-ho!" said Mike, and he said "He-he! I'll get up again, Old Wind, you'll see!"

Then the wind, with a flurry of bluster and racket, Went crowding and crowding right under his jacket; And it lifted him off from his two little feet, And it carried him bodily over the street. Mike laughed "He-he!" and he laughed "Ho-ho! Do you call this flying, I'd like to know?"

But the wind with its antics was plainly not through, For fiercer and fiercer and fiercer it blew, Till making one effort of fury intense It carried Mike neatly right over a fence. Mike said "Ho-ho!" and "He-he!" together, "Do you think I am naught but a little hen's-feather?"

He met there a somewhat discouraged old cow, That had blown thither too, though she failed to see how; And he smiled and said, "Make yourself easy, my friend— Only keep your mind quiet, and things'll soon mend!" And he laughed "He-he!" and he laughed "Ho-ho! The wind is just playing, old cow, you know!"

As he scampered off home, what above should he see But the roof of a shed, that had lodged in a tree; So he laughed and he laughed, till his sides they did ache, For he said, "This is better nor wedding nor wake!" And he roared "Ho-ho!" and he roared "He-he!" For he was as tickled as tickled could be.

"That boy," say the terrified folks of the town, "He would laugh just the same if the sky tumbled down!" "Indeed, an' I would," fancied Mike, with a grin, "For I might get a piece with a lot of stars in!" And he chuckled "He-he!" and he chuckled "Ho-ho!" The very idea delighted him so!

His father complained to the priest, "Now, I say, Mike never stops laughing, by night or by day!" "Let him laugh," spoke the priest; "he will change by and by, And 't is better to laugh than to grumble or cry! It's the way with the lad; let him laugh, if he like; And be glad you've a son that's as merry as Mike!"