The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-07-07
A STORY FOR THE YOUNG FOLKS,
The Four-and Twenty Enchanted Black
birds.

and a Queen who had no less than twen-
ty-six children, ST.; girls and twenty boys.
To save the trouble of inventing names
for so many, the parents simply called
them by the letters of the alphabet
thus, the girls were A, E, /, o, U, and
Y, and the boys were b, @, ID, F, G., III,
and so on. BY these names they were
known all over the kingdom, though b
was so like r that they were often mis-
taken for each other. j, too, was very
slim and elegant for boy, and if you
did not look at his dress, you might have
supposed him to be his sister l. NJ and
w were easily distinguished from the
rest, because they were much fatter.
F's voice was very like VS., but their
faces were quite different. In the same
way. when b and p had cold in their
heads. you could not have told which
was speaking.
They were oil very good children ex-
cept one, whom we are going to talk
about presently. There never was a
family so kind to each other. When III
lost himself, as he often did, the rest
all ran to find him. When r got into
a scrape, as he sometimes did, his broth
ers and sisters would come and beg that
they might be punished instead of him,
especially w, who was his chief crony,
and used to do some of his hard exer-
cises for him. If O and X, who did not
always agree, began to fight, their broth
ers always tried to separate them. And
when o cried, as she was fond of doing,
her sisters did all they could to comfort
her. They were always either at their
lessons or playing together, and their
favorite game was spelling. 1t was very
pretty to see them running into rows so
as to make up such wordsas toUe, beauty,
hope, joy, jam, i0isdon1, and so forth.
They did not care to have any other
playmates, but sometimes they wished
there had been two P's among them, for
then they would have been able to spell
happy, which was what they all felt
from morning till night.
ALP No, there was one who was not
good, nor happy either, and that was
crooked z, who, being the youngest,
had been spoiled, and had grown up
selfish and ill-tempered. From the
time that he was able to think, he had
been disconnected with everything,
though he was petted by everybody,
and had not nearly so much to do as the
rest. He wanted to be grown up and
have plenty of money, rs his papa had,
and be able to eat as much bread and
honey as he pleased, like his mamma.
He was angry because he was crooked
and ugly, and because he could not play
at spelling so well rs his sister Z, who
was the most active of all in these games,
and the greatest favorite with every
body. He made himself very unhappy
by thinking that he was the youngest,
and envying his eldest brother, b, who
would become King in good time after
lesson from his sister, Y, the next above
him in age, who was always very happy,
and whose little Grecian nose was poked
into everything merry and lively which
went on indeed, she was such romp
that people sometimes said she was more
like boy than a girl. But no-poor z
took no pleasure except in being misera-
BILE, and he came to hate his brothers
and sisters because they were not 80
miserable as himself. Then dreadful
thought came into his mind. If he
could but get rid of all the rest, he
would be left the only child, and the
kingdom would all belong to him when
his father died.
Now it must be known that each of the
princes and princesses had sixpence a
week given to his or her Royal Highness
for pocket-money, Most Of them used
to club their money together to have
jam at tea, or put their sixpences in the
savings bank to buy present for the
King and Queen on their birthdays but
q was very greedy, and generally went
at once to spend his sixpence at sweet
shop near the palace, kept by an ugly
old woman who had lately come to live
there. This old woman was really a
very wicked and powerful witch, who
hated all the men and women in the
world, and especially the children, to
whom it was her greatest pleasure to sell
q sort of poisoned toffee, that always
made them i'll. But she rather liked q,
because he did not like the other peo-
pie, and would let him have two ounces
of barley-sugar for three half-pence. SO
he used to sit in her shop for hours,
making himself sick, and telling her
how much he envied his brothers and
sisters.
Would you really like to get rid of
them 2" said she, one day, when he was
talking in this style.
"Of course" said z. Shouldn't I
be King, and have whatever pleased,
il the rest were out of the way?'
"Ugh ugh ugh!" grunted the old
witch. 1t was her way of laughing for
Joy to find that there was some one in
the world ialmost as wicked as herself.
Nov what will you give me if 1 help
you to get them out of the way9"
"Give you-oh! I'll give you any,
thing l can. I'll give you sixpence next
Saturday. and when am King, I will
make you Duchess"
"Ugh ugh Ia nice duchess I should
make But bring the sixpence, and we
will see."
So next Saturday, as lessons were
over, u got his pocket-money, and ran
down to the old woman's shop, eager to
make the bargain she had proposed to
him.