Year: 1872




or was not sure of her promptness, punct-
uality, and affection. Nor was it men and
women alone who felt so. The horses and
the cows-nay, the pigs and the hens-all
knew her cheerful voice and her ready at
tendance and her steady hand. lothian
said she could collar and harness that cross
brute "Mad March; that she would climb
into the manger and put the wretch's collar
on, and put the bit in his mouth, because
she was such lady. know she could do
it and of course Mad March let her do it,
for he could have eaten her, had he been
carnivorous, and hardly know he had tasted
food. But it was not because she was a
lady, but because her easy confidence, as
say, created the same confidence in all.


Do you remember Miss Yonge's pretty
story of Miss Keble? The little wrens
trusted her so entirely that they came to
pick the red berries which we're printed on
her muslin dress and, when the found
they could not get any of them of, they
flew down and crept up under the skirt,
thinking they should get at the berries on
the other side have seen the little birds
do that with Janet, such wrens as
those, because there are none in Maine,
but some little witches not so much bigger
than an English wren, whose name | do
know. Wren or no wren, they knew Janet,
even if she did not know their name, nor
they hers.





The pretty picture Mr.. Billings has made
of her just represents both sides. mean
she trusted the birds, and the birds trus-
ted her. In the picture you see just how
it was. This little whistler has fascinated
her, and she has fascinated him. He
knows she will not hurt him ; and it almost
seems as if she were listening y him, and
learning from him, as in the "Arabian
Nights" and in the German fairy-tales, the
girls of the real blue blood understand the
language of caterpillar, cricket, grasshop-
per, toad, frog weasel, pussey-cat, tom-tit,
ostrich, camel-leopard, and all other verte-
brates or invertebrates. Dear little Janet,
she is as good a fairy as the best of them


After the haymow fight, when she was
as big girl as Mr.. Billings has made her,
we had many tramp together up-brook,
through moose-wood and over mountain.
l have seen her pass from rock to rock, on
one of the ridges Of Ktaadn, with nc
thought of taking staff, with no kind OF
uneasiness, though she were just on the
sheer edge of that precipice which you re-
member perhaps on the southern face ol
Ktaadn. have seen it fifty miles away
Yes and have seen the child's father fell
that we might walk dry-shod across the
stream and the moment it fell little Janet
was the first to swing herself upon the
trunk, to run across as lightly as one o.
her own little birds would, and in ten sec
onds was beckoning and waving her hand
from the rocks on the other shore. We
could not hear word she said for the rush
of the rapids in the gorge below. He
father, who worships her,-as well he may
used to tell story of an experience o
theirs in a sort Of outlying station he had
half shanty and half lumber-camp, just OF
the edge Of the woods. Mrs. Trevor haC
gone up with him and Janet, and the chill
dren; and they were to have a sort Of picnic
frolic for three or four days. But one o.
the little boys was not well SO their moth
er had taken them all home, leaving jane
to cook for her father who had something
in hand. Poor fellow In the middle o
the second morning, as he pried up heay.
sill from its resting place, Ithe ground gay
way under him, his bar slipped, and he ant
the log rolled down together in the hole h
had made,--poor Trevor underneath, ant
his leg broken just above the ankle. Jane
was with him in two seconds but she coul'
not free him, nor could five others like her
"She did not wait long" he said. Offsh
went like bird, down to McMurtrie's pas
ture, mile and half down the intervale
Over the root-fence, into the pasture, an,
then, threading through the high ferns
: she began to call "Dan Dan! Dan =


Now, Dan was vicious old stallion whom
McMurtrie chose TO keep ranging in his pas


ture and in the woods. When McMurtri
or any Of his men wanted Dan, which wa
1 four times in a summer, 1T took peck G
, salt, and lurings and chasings, lariats an
$ lassos indescribable, to WOO him and to Wi


him. And now this child--for Janet wa
5 still not woman grown-only called Da
b two Or three times, and down through til
underbrush came the great hulking crei
4 ture, glowering at her; and as she slowl
!, walked up TO him with handful Of rasI
7 berries, he did n0tfurn away and the