would object if some of their correspondents could tell their story as clearly in as few words. This is a copy of the epistle:

"Savanar, October 29, 187-.

"My Dear Mother,—I take My pen in hand To ashure you I am safe, et ceterer. tell Jim Studley i cort a hollibut nigh the braking shole I gess would way 200. Then got under way for Home about 6 pm with Thretning wether. It come on to Blow with hevy sqwalls from n,n,w to n. a terble cross sea Runnin. carried away my Starbord ore and had to lay to a Drag. at 11 pm Colided with brig calipso laying to Making a complete reck Of the Dory. got Abord the Brig by the Main chanils Arriving at savanar Oct 28. Thay are verry Kind. Capn adams who cent the Tellygraft says there is nothing Bound north and to stay abord til We are loded for boston. he will pay me saylor wages when i Go back. The mate has gave Me a starch shirt, a hat Shoose and socks. And the sekond mate a soot of Blue close wich Is a little wore. And flanils. i was never Drest so Nice. I am Looking for a good paing job Ashore while i am hear. perhaps i can Make a Big strik and Bring home the munny to pay up the Morgige. I must Now close with love to All inquiring frends Yore duttifle sun

"Ben B."

Having mailed this remarkable document, Ben strolled through the streets, enjoying the novelty as only a boy can who has never been ten miles from home in his whole life.

"Why, what a high steeple!" said Ben to himself, as he stopped below the Cotton Exchange, and gazed admiringly at the lofty but slender spire of the handsome church directly opposite.

Now it is a curious fact that if you stand still in the street, and begin to look intently at anything, some one else is sure to stop and stare in the same direction, as though people generally had an interrogation point for a sort of mental birth-mark. And Ben had hardly fixed his gaze on the tall spire, when two gentlemen came to a halt and began to look the same way.

"I thought you took the contract to regild the ball and arrow up there, Miles," Ben finally heard one of them say, with a nod of his head toward the weather-vane.

"So I did," returned Mr. Miles, who was a "boss" painter, "and a nice fix I'm in about it, too."

"How so?" asked the other, as, bringing his gaze earthward, he leaned up against the iron fence, and lit a cigar.

"Well," answered Mr. Miles, following his friend's example, "it's this way: I contracted to have the thing done for so much. I supposed, of course, that the vane could be sent down, like any other, and gilded, and had my best man go up to see to it. He worked at the nuts and bolts that hold it for 'most half a day; then he came down all of a shake, and says the thing can't be done, everything has rusted so, and that if it can't be regilded where it is, it can't be done at all. He won't be hired to go up there again, and I can't find any one hereabouts that will try it for love or money. I even telegraphed to New York for Ferguson, the steeple-climber, offered to pay expenses, and give him seventy-five dollars to boot; but he is engaged two months ahead. I'd give a hundred and fifty dollars to-day," said Mr. Miles, smoking vigorously, "to any one who would shin up there and do the job; for though it isn't an easy thing, I know it can be done."

"Say two hundred, and I'm your man," suddenly exclaimed Ben, who had been listening, carelessly at first, then eagerly. Two hundred dollars would clear the incumbrance from the little brown house. Once he had climbed the pole of the signal-staff on Covert Point, and rove off the halyards almost a hundred and fifty feet from the ground, and was glad to get five dollars for doing it. But then, as Mrs. Buttles said, "Ben was a dretful ventur'some creetur."

Mr. Miles was a man of few words. He eagerly grasped at this unexpected straw.

"If you mean business," he said, eying Ben's self-reliant face approvingly, "come to the church to-morrow morning early, and I will show you what is to be done."

Ben nodded, and made his way back to the Calypso.

"I want to borrow a piece of spare running gear, sir," he said to the mate on the following morning.

"Take all you want," was the answer.

Long before Mr. Miles had made his appearance at the church, Ben was in the church tower, with the running gear coiled over his shoulder, and a coil of spun yarn in the bosom of his blue shirt. Climbing upward over cobwebbed cross-beams and girders, he found himself under the four narrow skylights of heavy ground glass that dimly lighted the narrow interior of the spire. Through one of these, which was partly open, Ben thrust his neck and shoulders. About twenty feet above him the tapering spire ended in a great ball, through which rose the tall iron "spindle," surmounted by the vane in the shape of an arrow. Two parts of a knotted rope were twisted around the spindle above the ball, and brought down through the skylight. This had served Mr. Miles's workman in lieu of ladder. Ben's head and heart failed for one brief moment, as he looked upward, and for the first time began to realize the magnitude of his task. Only for a moment, though.

"It's for mother's sake," he said, softly, to himself, and the thought strengthened his heart and steadied his nerves.

By this time Mr. Miles had clambered up to a rude scaffolding under the open skylight with a basket containing a can of oil size and some large "books" of gold-leaf. He then showed Ben how to apply the leaf to the size, and cautioned him not to fall, which Ben gravely assured him he should try very hard not to do.

In one end of his coil of light but strong gear Ben had tied a running bowline. This he threw over his shoulder, and taking off his shoes, began his perilous ascent.

It was easy enough to reach the spindle by the knotted rope-ladder. Then came the tug of war. Up the spindle, which shook and swayed, the courageous boy crept, until, breathless and almost exhausted, he threw his arms over the vane itself, and for the first time ventured to look out and downward.

A toy-city, with Lilliputian people moving through the little streets, lay beneath him. Beyond, the Savannah River like a narrow ribbon wound through the low-lying rice fields until it reached the distant sea, which lay hazily indistinct against the horizon. The view was sublimely beautiful, but Ben's head began to swim, and he bethought himself of his task.