Willie Wisp's Temperance Lecture.
MOTHER went to a funeral one day last spring and left me home alone. I went out to the hen-house for the eggs, and there I saw Speckle sitting all humped up, and looking very dumpish. I thought she was going to die. I picked her up and carried her into the house. I hardly knew what to do, but I remembered what mother does for young lambs when they are chilled, so I warmed a little milk, and put in a few drops of the whisky she keeps on purpose for the lambs. I tried to feed Speckle some of the stuff with a teaspoon, but she wouldn't eat it. She shook her bill, and spattered it all over my velveteen suit. I tried it over and over again, till I was about as speckled as she was; then I gave it up, and carried her back to the hen-house; and she went to eating corn, as much as to say,