The Newtown bee., 1890-06-27
TRIxY's PRIZE POEM.

bly mean. Had some onedone wrong and was he to be exposed to his fellow class mates? Each of the younger boys,swith one accord, began to review his record mentally, to see if it could be he. Tom De Peyster, who had pulled the wings off poor little fly that day and the boys who sat near him and had laughed at the antics of the tortured insecta it plunged wildly over the desk, began to look sober.
 Flossy Marx, who sat near the open window and had spent a good deal of time scraping up the white cherry blos- soms that drifted in wirh every breath of south wind and made believe it was d lit tie dolls bed on which she laid a doll fashioned from her tiny lace-trimmed handkerchief, slooked very serious and wondered if Miss Fairlie had seen her playing after all.
 But the expression on Miss Fairlie's face was not one of reproof. ssMembers of the Loyal Temperance Legion will please rise to their feet" commanded the teacher.
 Forty bobbing heads, black, brown, white and yellow, were kup in a twink ling, and 40 pairs of eyes, black, blue, brown and gray, began to sparkle. When Miss Fairlie planned anything for the Loyal Temperance Legion, it was sure to be something good.
 i've are going to have one of our children's dime sociables for the benefit of 1,n I ' caiI Miss Fairlie, "but have thought it best to have something new by way of yarie- ty. We will have rhyming contest and the boy or girl who composes the best poem of not less than eight lines on the subject of temperance will receive $5 in gold for prize. All can compete who wish to do so and the prize will be awarded by a committee of three, chosen from the audience by the children them selves. You have just week in which to prepare your lines and all who are willing to compete may raise their hands,"
 Up flew the hands in every direction, though when they came to be counted, only 9 had the courage to pledge them selves.
 "If there isn't Trixy Winslow," whis- pered Fanny Brayton, the largest girl in school, to her little cousin, F'lossy Marx. "Wonder if she is really going to try for the prize," and she looked severely on poor little Trixy as she spoke.
 But Trixy, bright and jolly, spite of her rags and patches and quite uncon- scious of any intentional offense, return ed Fanny's severe glance with gay smile that showed all her white teeth and stood, her hands clasped in sort of rap ture.
 Rhyming was Trixy's one gift. The children at home, ragged and noisy, might chamber about her, with clamor- ous appeals for this or that, for TriXy was general nurse to the rellieking brood that filled the house all day long with turmoil and confusion, but Trixy, with stubby lead pencil, would pursue her be- loved pastime of scribbling rhymes all over everything in the most plodigal fashion, on margins of newspapers, on blank leaves of books, even on bits of clean shingles when nothing better offer ed itself.
 Only one thing could rob Trixy of all enjoyment in her rhymes and that was to see her father come reeling down the lane, his hat askew on his tumbled, I frowsy hair, his eyes bleared and red and his words wild and incoherent. Then | I.to JI f1.a fnt JNxv on the floor and hide away in the orchard behind the house, or the kitchen garret, anywhere to escape the sight that filled her with deadly terror that she could not conquer and only increased as the days went by and the repulsive spectacle grew more and more frequent.
 Her mother, toiling at the sewing ma chine day after day to earn the scanty sum that barely kept them from starva- tion, knew nothing of Trixy's scribbling. She was sad, abstracted woman, weigh ed down by the weight of her grief and care, loving mother, but so absorbed
 in providing for the physical needs ot
 her family that she had little thought fol
 anything else. So down in the orchard where the grass grew thick and tall amid the nodding crimson clover blossoms, ol sitting beside the creek in the maple
 woods just beyond the orchard, witf
 bare feet hanging in the gurgling stream
 Trixy dreamed her childish dreams and wove them full of her own bright fan cies.
 elf l could only get the prize for moth
 er," she thought to herself, 'sthen tn,
 baby could have a pair of new shoes ant
 mother the shawl she needs so much
 and-oh, ever so many things, for s i r such lot of money,''
 7 From the day of it's announcement, tn prize became the all absorbing topic 0
 conversation among the pupils of Mis- Fairlie's room. Notwithstanding her re E quest that no time or thought should b n given to the subject in school hours ' many bright head was bent low owe !, the desk after recitations were over,whil
 the owner slyly bored over slate cross z ed and re-crossed with many lines . ' scanned suspicious looking bits of papel ' Trixy became careless of the baby e and even ran away from the other chilt ?. ren once or twice, to hide ill the orchar e and rack her poor brain with thought that had no rightful place in the mind { = child. She forgot to whistle an answt
 to the oriolc that was building it's nest C n the swinging branch of q tall elm tree n Mir Erayton's meadow across the roa
 and his loud, mellow whistle passed u
 needed, SO intent was she on the vers,