Maple Grove Stories
For
Little Readers.

HAPPY HEARTS

BY JUNE ISLE.

CINCINNATI:
PUBLISHED BY POE & HITCHCOCK.

R. P. THOMPSON, PRINTER.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864.
BY POE & HITCHCOCK,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of Ohio.

CONTENTS.

HAPPY HEARTS.

CHAPTER I.

WHOM HAVE WE ALWAYS.

Mr. and Mrs. Payson had three little children, who were very dear to them, and whom they amused and instructed in many pleasant ways.

One Spring, just as the leaves were bursting open and the birds were filling the air with gay songs, Mr. Payson told the children he had bought a home for them in the country.

This pleased the little ones, and they talked from morning till night about what they would do in their new home.

In the pretty country they watched the birds building their nests, and saw them feeding their young and teaching them to fly; and then they saw them in great cawing, twittering, fluttering swarms moving off to warmer lands when the yellow Autumn leaves began to fall.

But when the Winter winds sung through the old pine trees, the children began to talk about Christmas.

"I wonder if Santa Claus will come away out here, with his great pack of toys," said Rebecca one day. "I am afraid he will forget us, he has so many children to remember."

"He may perhaps forget us," said Joshua; "for cousin Nelly says that he, one time, forgot to put any thing in her stocking, although she hung it where he could find it."

"But," said Rebecca, "Nelly said it was a very stormy night, and they lived on a hill, and the wind blew so hard they were afraid it would blow the house down. And I think Santa Claus was afraid the wind would upset his pack of toys if he went up on aunt Judd's roof."

"I think," said Joshua, "we had better send Santa Claus a letter, telling him that we have moved from town out into this