I like YOUNG PEOPLE, especially the Post-office Box. The story of "The Moral Pirates" is splendid, and I hope it will be a good long one.
I have no tame pets, but there are some chipping sparrows around our house. One pair built a nest in the honeysuckles by the kitchen door, and another pair built in the grape arbor.
Here is a recipe for cake for the Cooking Club: One and a half cups of sugar; one egg; two table-spoonfuls of butter; three cups of sifted flour; one cup of sweet milk; two tea-spoonfuls of cream of tartar; one of soda; a little essence of either lemon or almond--I like almond best. This will make a good big cake.
ELLA B. R.
I found fifty-five new flowers in June. Among them was the _Ceanothus americanus_, or New Jersey tea, the leaves of which, mamma read to me, were used for tea during the American Revolution. It is a pretty shrub with white flowers.
I have two pet kittens, named Puck and Blossom.
I would like to send Carrie Harding some pressed arbutus, but it has done blooming for this year. I would be glad to exchange other kinds of pressed flowers with her, if she would like to do so.
HARRY H. MOORE, Windsor, Connecticut.
ANACOSTIA, D. C.
On the 10th of July I was nine years old. Although it is vacation now, I practice writing in my copy-book, for it is very important to be a good writer.
I have a butterfly net, and have caught some very pretty specimens. If Walter H. P. would use benzine to kill his butterflies, he would find it quite as good as cyanide of potassium, which is so poisonous. Benzine can be bought by the quart at the paint shops at a low price, and one or two drops on the head of a butterfly will kill it at once.
I have a bantam rooster so tame that he will allow me to pick him up and carry him in my arms. I have a kitchen-garden, too. In it there are potatoes, corn, tomatoes, water-melons, a pea-nut vine, and two fine tobacco plants. One of my tomato vines has fruit on it. There are no weeds in my garden.
I think HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE is the best paper published for children.
WILLIE C. S.
HARSHMANVILLE, OHIO.
Papa takes HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE for my brother. Mamma made him a pie from Helen's recipe. It was very nice. Mamma says some little girls are born cooks.
When my brother reads the fairy stories in YOUNG PEOPLE, he says he would like to wade the Atlantic Ocean, and put a few whales in his pocket for his minnow tank. Now he wants to go fishing in a boat. He is almost ten, and I am seven.
Mamma says, Tell Puss Hunter to set her bread to rise in a deep vessel, as the less surface exposed, the better it is, as the gas is kept confined in the dough. A flannel cloth to cover it with is best, for the same reason. Mamma says she is a friend to all little bakers.
MYRTIE BELLE E.
I would like to exchange dried grasses, Southern moss, birds' eggs and nests, for sea-shells, with any reader of YOUNG PEOPLE.
HORACE L. BARLOW, Refugio, Refugio County, Texas.
I would be glad to exchange birds' eggs with any correspondent of YOUNG PEOPLE.
S. E. STRONG, 1394 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.
I am eleven years old. I have a pony, some rabbits, guinea-pigs, and ferrets. Not long ago my pony went into the bantam-house, and ate up a whole boxful of oats which was standing there. Then he pulled down a bag of oats, and scattered them all over the floor.
I have two canaries which have set twice this spring, but have not raised a bird.
I would like to exchange pressed flowers with some little girl in California.
WINNIE WALDRON, Care of Mr. E. H. Waldron, Lafayette, Indiana.
Will Harry Starr Kealhofer, of Memphis, Tennessee, please send his full address, and a list of stamps he wishes to exchange, to M. C. Stryker, corner of Argyle Avenue and Biddle Street, Baltimore, Maryland?
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
Will you please tell me the origin of the name of strawberries? I take YOUNG PEOPLE, and like it very much, and my little cousins in Louisiana take it too. I am eight years old.
WINNIE S. G.
The word strawberry is from the Anglo-Saxon, and was formerly written _streawberie_. The reason for applying the name to the delicious little fruit is undecided. Some authorities hold that it should be written strayberry, and that it refers to the creeping or straying habit of the vines.
C. L. B.--Alwur, sometimes written Alwar or Alvar, is a town of India, eighty-five miles southwest of Delhi.
BONANZA, IDAHO.
I have heard that there are a great many towns in the United States named Vicksburg. Can you tell me how many?
My sister tried Helen's recipe for lemon pie, in YOUNG PEOPLE No.
32, and it was very nice.
F. M. G.
There are five towns and cities named Vicksburg, one in each of the following States: Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Mississippi.
WILLIE M.--Directions for making an ordinary kite were given in Post-office Box No. 19. "Sim Vedder's Kite," in YOUNG PEOPLE No. 25, also contained some valuable suggestions.