hymn familiar to the household. It was the duty of each person hearing it to immediately rise, or at least sit up in bed, and join in the singing. In a few moments the whole family would be singing, and the joyous sounds pouring out from the house like the music of the birds in the fields at dawn. The hymns were usually invocations to the Virgin, or to the saint of the day, and the melodies were sweet and simple.

On this morning there was another watcher for the dawn besides Father Salvierderra. It was Alessandro, who had been restlessly wandering about since midnight, and had finally seated himself under the willow trees by the brook, at the spot where he had seen Ramona the evening before. He recollected this custom of the sunrise hymn when he and his band were at the Señora's the last year, and he had chanced then to learn that the Father slept in the southeast room. From the spot where he sat, he could see the south window of this room. He could also see the low eastern horizon, at which a faint luminous line already showed. The sky was like amber; a few stars still shone faintly in the zenith. There was not a sound. It was one of those rare moments in which one can without difficulty realize the noiseless spinning of the earth through space. Alessandro knew nothing of this; he could not have been made to believe that the earth was moving. He thought the sun was coming up apace, and the earth was standing still,-a belief just as grand, just as thrilling, so far as all that goes, as the other: men worshipped the sun long before they found out that it stood still.

His eyes wandered from the horizon line of slowly increasing light, to the windows of the house, yet dark and still. "Which window is hers? Will she open it when the song begins?" he thought. "Is it on this side of the house? Who can she be? She was not here last year. Saw the saints ever so beautiful a creature!"

At last came the full red ray across the meadow. Alessandro sprang to his feet. In the next second Father

Salvierderra flung up his south window, and leaning out, his cowl thrown off, his thin gray locks streaming back, began in a feeble but not unmelodious voice to sing

Before he had

"O beautiful Queen,

Princess of Heaven."

finished the second line, a half-dozen voices had joined in the Señora, from her room at the west end of the veranda, beyond the flowers; Félipe, from the adjoining room; Ramona, from hers, the next; and Margarita and other of the maids already astir in the wings of the house.

Singers at dawn

From the heavens above

People all regions;

Gladly we too sing,"

continued the hymn, the birds corroborating the stanza.

Then men's voices

one, known to all.

joined in. The hymn was a favorite

Come, O sinners.

Come, and we will sing

Tender hymns

To our refuge,"

was the chorus, repeated after each of the five verses of the hymn.

Alessandro also knew the hymn well. His father, Chief Pablo, had been the leader of the choir at the San Luis Rey Mission in the last years of its splendor, and had brought away with him much of the old choir music. Some of the books had been written by his own hand, on parchment. He not only sang well, but was a good player on the violin. There was not at any of the missions so fine a band of performers on stringed instruments as at San Luis Rey.

Alessandro had inherited his father's love and talent for

music, and knew all the old mission music by heart. This hymn to the

"Beautiful Queen,
Princess of Heaven,"

was one of his special favorites; and as he heard verse after verse rising, he could not forbear striking in.

At the first notes of this rich new voice, Ramona's voice ceased in surprise; and, throwing up her window, she leaned out, eagerly looking in all directions to see who it could be. Alessandro saw her, and sang no more. "What could it have been? Did I dream it?" thought Ramona, drew in her head, and began to sing again.

With the next stanza of the chorus, the same rich baritone notes. They seemed to float in under all the rest, and bear them along, as a great wave bears a boat. Ramona had never heard such a voice. Félipe had a good tenor, and she liked to sing with him, or to hear him; but this this was from another world, this sound. Ramona felt every note of it penetrating her consciousness with a subtle thrill almost like pain. When the hymn ended, she listened eagerly, hoping Father Salvierderra would strike up a second hymn, as he often did; but he did not this morning; there was too much to be done; everybody was in a hurry to be at work: windows shut, doors opened; the sounds of voices from all directions, ordering, questioning, answering, began to be heard. The sun rose and let a flood of work-a-day light on the whole place.

3. Louisa M. Alcott (1832-1888) was the daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott, who was associated with Emerson, Thoreau, and other Transcendentalists. She became a popular writer for young folks. Her Little Men and Little Women are dear to the hearts of most boys and girls. The latter was dramatized in 1912 and met with great success on the New York stage.

Charles F. Browne, "Artemus Ward" (1834-1867), Henry W. Shaw, "Josh Billings" (1818-1885), and Edgar

Wilson Nye, "Bill Nye" (1850-1896), were popular entertainers in their day and contributed to the written record of American humor. Characteristic extracts follow.

4. Charles F. Browne (Artemus Ward).

WOMAN'S RIGHTS

I pitcht my tent in a small town in Injianny one day last season, & while I was standin at the dore takin money, a deppytashum of ladies came up & sed they wos members of the Bunkumville Female Reformin & Wimin's Rite's Associashun, and they axed me if they cood go in without payin.

"Not exactly," sez I, "but you can pay without goin in.” "Dew you know who we air?" said one of the wimina tall and feroshus lookin critter, with a blew kotton umbreller under her arm-"do you know who we air, Sur?" "My impreshun is," sed I, "from a kersery view, that you air females."

"We air, Sur," said the feroshus woman-"we belong to a Sosiety whitch beleeves wimin has rites-whitch beleeves in razin her to her proper speer-whitch beleeves she is indowed with as much intelleck as man is-whitch beleeves she is trampled on and aboozed-& who will resist henso4th & forever the incroachments of proud & domineering men."

Durin her discourse, the exsentric female grabbed me by the coat-kollor & was swinging her umbreller wildly hed.

over my

"I hope, marm," sez I, starting back, "that your intensions is honorable! I'm a lone man here in a strange place. Besides, I've a wife to hum."

"Yess," cried the female, "& she's a slave! Doth she never dream of freedom-doth she never think of throwin off the yoke of tyrrinny & thinkin & votin for herself?→ Doth she never think of these here things?"

"Not bein a natral born fool," sed I, by this time a little riled, "I kin safely say that she dothunt."

"Oh whot-whot!" screamed the female, swinging her umbreller in the air. "Oh, what is the price that woman pays for her experiunce."

"I don't know," sez I; "the price of my show is 15 cents pur individooal."

"& can't our Sosiety go in free?" asked the female. "Not if I know it," sed I.

"Crooil, crooil man!" she cried, & bust into teers.

"My female friends," sed I, "before you leeve, I've a few remarks! wa them well. The female woman is one of the greatest institooshuns of which this land can boste. Its onpossible to get along without her. Had ther bin no female wimin in the world, I should scarcely be here with my unpareleld show on this occashun. She is good in sickness-good in wellness-good at the time. O woman, woman!" I cried, my feelins worked up to a hi poetick pitch. "You air a angle when you behave yourself; but when you take off you proper appairel & (mettyforically speaken) get into pantyloons-when you desert your firesides, & with your heds full of wimin's rites noshuns go round like roarin lions, seekin whom you may devour someboddy-in short, when you undertake to play the man, you play the devil and air an emfatic noosance. My female friends," I continnered, as they were indignantly departin, "wa well what A. Ward has sed!"

5. Henry W. Shaw (Josh Billings).

THE BUMBLEBEE

The bumblebee iz a kind ov big fly who goes muttering and swareing around the lots, during the summer, looking after little boys to sting them, and stealing hunny out ov the dandylions and thissells. He iz mad all the time about sumthing, and don't seem to kare a kuss what people think ov him. A skoolboy will studdy harder enny time to find a bumblebee's nest than he will to get hiz lesson in arithmetik, and when he haz found it, and got the hunny